The Osaka at the Threshold
by Demondays91
Summary: Kyon recalls a very odd series of events concerning unfamiliar faces, universe fusion and otherworldy entities. A crossover between Haruhi, a load of other animes and HP Lovecraft.
1. The First Day

If I remember rightly, it was a dull, summer day when the whole event kicked off.

About a year had passed since I'd transferred to high school, hoping it to be a rather uneventful experience. Maybe I would find some new friends, a girlfriend even. Hopefully, everything would go easily enough that I'd get the grades to enter the university of my choice, and life would pass by quite happily, with me living it without a care in the world.

I didn't, however, wager on meeting Haruhi Suzumiya. I'm sure I've relayed to you the story of my meeting her, and the tales of her eccentric behaviour in searching for Espers, aliens and time travellers to "hang out" with. My high school life, predictably, was turned completely upside-down as I was drafted, against my will, into the Save the World by Overloading it with fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade. Or SOS Brigade, for short. Pretty soon, the magnetic pull of Haruhi's personality was enough to draw all three oddities to the club- an Esper, Itsuki Koizumi, an alien, Yuki Nagato, and a time traveller, Mikuru Asahina. Oh, and I forgot to mention my name. Well, in light of recent events, I think it's safer for you to refer to me as "John Smith". It's better that we prevent another catastrophe from happening, rather than try to solve it when it does.

Ah yes, of course. I must tell you. Suzumiya is...well, there's no easy way to say this...basically she's...well, God. Suzumiya has the power to make whatever she wants to happen...happen. I know, I never believed it at first- possibly because I gave up on such wild flights of fantasy when I was younger- but the more I see of her, and the more that the other SOS Brigade members explain to me...the more I believe it. I'd rather be completely clueless, if I'm to be honest, but then I suppose that would have helped none on this particular occasion.

Well, I think it's best we got started.

As I was saying, it was lunchtime, on a summer day at school- that period where everyone's just waiting, tired and ready for the summer vacation time to roll around- where everyone just wants to fall down, exhausted, and declare "I surrender". There was no sign of Suzumiya in class three, and I was quite happy staring out of the window, relaxed and calm. I was glad to see the girl in front doing the same, a tall, dark-haired girl who often muttered things like "Maybe he got into a fight..."

I was enjoying my peace for about 5 minutes, when I suddenly heard a loud crash from the other side of the room. I looked over in shock, to see a tall, bespectacled, brown-haired girl hitting a smaller girl on the head.

"Dammit, Tomo!" The tall girl yelled. "Why'd you have to go and do that?"

"Yomi, you're so booooring!" The smaller girl laughed. "You've never tried eating noodles while doing a handstand before, have you?"

"Do it on your own time, not when I'm eating on a desk beside you!" The taller girl hit her again, causing the smaller to wince in pain and retaliate by pinching the tall girl's cheeks. This continued for a short while, as an even smaller, pigtailed girl tried to break up the conflict, and another girl simply stared off into space, blankly.

I began to wonder why I hadn't taken much notice of the girls before- they certainly seemed like characters. Now that I thought about it, I'd often seen the dark-haired girl hanging around with them before. In my head, I began to go over their names, just to make sure I hadn't totally lost my mind. The tall one with the auburn hair is Koyomi Mizuhara. The shorter one with the magenta hair- Tomo Takino. The even smaller, younger looking girl was called-

"Kyon! Hey, I'm back!"

-Chiyo Mihama. The spacey-looking girl with the shoulder-length brown hair is-

"Kyon? Kyon, wake up already!"

-Ayumu, I think. Kasuga Ayumu, the transfer student from Osaka. And, finally, the tall girl with long hair, sitting in front of me, is-

"KYON!!"

"SAKAKI!" I yelled out loud. The girl in front turned round, slightly shocked, and it was only then that I realised Suzumiya had been standing beside me, trying to get my attention. As soon as she realised whose name I had yelled out, her face contorted into an expression of fierce superstition. Quickly, I apologised to the girl in front, who nodded and turned back round. The bigger challenge was explaining myself to the girl next to me.

"And what was that, Kyon?" Haruhi addressed me by my nickname, grinning evilly. "Are you acting out your kinky little fantasies in schooltime, now?"

As soon as she said this, I heard a gasp from in front, as Sakaki stood up and ran out of the classroom. I noticed her face had turned red with embarrassment. I went to follow her, to explain the misunderstanding, but she moved surprisingly fast.

"I hope you're pleased with yourself, Suzumiya." I said, bitterly. "I don't think Miss Sakaki's exactly known for her self-confidence."

"Hmph! I don't care!" Haruhi declared, her face brimming with the self-indulgent smirk she gets whenever something goes her way. Which, considering the fact that she's God, occurs surprisingly often.

"Anyway! Now I've got your attention, Kyon, I need to tell you something that I've told every other Brigade member so far!" She boomed, with the audacity of a town crier. She then cleared her throat, before changing her voice to a whisper.

"Do you see that girl over there, next to the one with the pigtails?"

I looked. It was Ayumu.

"Yeah. Her name's Kasuga Ayumu. I would've thought you'd known that, Suzumiya."

"I don't care!" She hissed, then continued. "Well, I was talking to Izumi from class two, and-"

"Izumi who phoned in sick three times last week complaining about a summer cold? Friends with those purple-haired girls?"

"Stop interrupting me, Kyon!" She huffed again. "Yes, that Izumi! She told me that she thinks she's an alien! Isn't that awesome? A real alien!"

I sat back in my seat and rolled my eyes. Of course, anything was possible with Haruhi, but I still didn't believe this anyway. I had clearly learned nothing.

"So you're believing Izumi? The girl who plays so many video games and watches so much anime that she can't even tell real life from fiction anymore?" I said, cynically.

"Anything's worthy of investigation, Kyon! Summer's almost here, and the SOS Brigade doesn't have long to go! Soon we won't be able to meet after school anymore, and who knows how long that alien's gonna stay here!"

"Ugh. You could at least call her Ayumu until we get confirmation of her really being an alien..." I sighed, rolling my eyes. "I'm guessing you've called an emergency meeting of the SOS Brigade?"

"Oh, Kyon! You know me too well. Maybe your dedication will make up for that embarrassing incident earlier..." Suzumiya checked her watch, saw that lunch was about to end, and sat down in her seat behind me. I looked over to the other side of the classroom, to see Tomo trying frantically to clean up Yomi's spilled noodles, as the latter stood behind her, wielding a rolled-up book and ready to thrash her if she did anything other than clean. A moment later, Miss Sakaki walked back into the room, her face now back to its normal colour, and spoke briefly with Chiyo and Osaka as the bell rang.

Minutes later, the door suddenly slammed open as the English teacher, Miss Tanizaki, stomped into the room.

"SIT DOWN, ALL OF YOU!" She yelled, and the class hurriedly took their seats. I tried to steal a glance at Sakaki, to see how she was, and our eyes met for a moment. She paused, then smiled at me and nodded, as if to accept my silent apology. I smiled back, relieved, then suddenly heard a malevolent hissing in my ear.

"Careful now, Kyon...your Brigade Chief doesn't take well to traitors." I heard Haruhi whisper from behind. Rolling my eyes, I turned my attention back to the front, to see Miss Tanizaki scribbling a passage in English on the blackboard.

"I know that's you, Suzumiya! SHUT UP!" She yelled. I heard Haruhi huff, them lean back in her chair. Tanizaki finished and turned around, her face dark and sinister.

"Heh heh heh...now, all of you are to copy that passage and translate it directly into Japanese!" She yelled, and was greeted with a collective "what?" "she can't seriously be..." "are you kidding me?"

"SHUT UP!" She yelled, again. "It's not my fault that a bunch of freshmen dweebs were all clogging up the streets around the gaming store when I went out there! Ohhh, look, it's a stupid high school teacher! Let's make a line so big she'll NEVER BE ABLE TO GET IN! ALL I WANTED WAS STREET FIGHTER, YOU HEAR? STREET FIGHTER!"

I glanced around the room, to see the class staring at her- half with bemused expressions, and the other half with exasperated ones. In the process, I glanced a girl with long, pink hair and glasses. I swore I'd never seen her before...

"AND SO! To pay for what your useless, horrible brethren did, you will be carrying out this task until I am satisfied!" She yelled. A silence fell over the room, which was broken a moment later by a slim, nervous-looking girl with short-ish hair. She was quite pretty, I thought.

"Um, M...Miss Tanizaki, I was just thinking...what about the announcement...?"

"Eh?!" Miss Tanizaki replied, staring at the girl in thought. Suddenly, she realised, her mood seeming to dip lower in the process.

"Oh yeah. Kaorin has something to announce from the astronomy club, or something." She slumped down on her desk, as the girl smiled, stood up and walked to the front of the class, before being joined by her fellow astronomy club member, someone who I remember as being named "Chihiro". She cleared her throat and spoke.

"The Astronomy club is pleased to announce that late last night, we discovered what we believe to be a new planet." Her smile grew wider as the class began to excitedly murmur amongst themselves. I heard an interested sound from Haruhi- figures she'd be interested in something like this. Chihiro was the next to speak.

"We believe the planet to be twice the size of Jupiter, and orbiting close to the planet Neptune. P...please check the news tonight for further details. Thank you." Chihiro said. The two girls then bowed, before walking back to their seats, to the sound of quiet applause. I thought Haruhi would try and get my attention, but this prospect was shattered by Yukari yelling at us to shut up and get on with the translation. It would have to wait until later.


	2. Assumptions About Osakans

After school ended, Haruhi dashed off, stopping on the right hand side of the classroom for a second to pass a note onto Ayumu, who simply stared, spacey as ever, and took the note. Personally, I preferred to take my time packing away my stuff, time also used in steeling myself for the ordeal ahead- the SOS Brigade meeting. I had already worked out that Haruhi intended to bring Izumi along, and judging by the note she bundled into Ayumu's hand, I figured that she also wanted the "alien" to make a guest appearance.

Having packed my things into my bag, I stood up and began to walk out, when I noticed Sakaki, who was staring out of the window as she packed her bag. Hoping I could make sure everything was okay, I walked over.

"Uh, Miss..Sakaki?" I said. As I spoke, I saw her jump slightly, as if she had been off in a dream world.

"Y...yes?" She said. No smile. I wondered if I was still on her bad side.

"I just wanted to apologise for Haruhi earlier. Oh, and for myself, I suppose. I was just...well, going over the names of everyone in the class, and Haruhi kind of caught me at a bad time, obviously." I laughed awkwardly. I didn't quite know how to compose myself in front of her- she did have a reputation for being a "lone wolf", hearing some of the other girls talking.

"Oh...yes." Sakaki smiled slightly. "Well, it's okay. I understand.

"G...good!" I exclaimed, rubbing the back of my neck, nervously. "I'm glad. Glad she didn't embarrass you or anything."

"Well..." Sakaki thought for a moment. "I am trying to...get over that. Our first performance is next week, after all."

"Performance?" I asked. "You're in a band?"

And we spoke for a short while, myself saying much, she saying relatively little. She was in a band- a light music club, apparently. I'd never heard of it, but tried to play along. I did manage to get the name- "School Teatime" or something familiar. I also managed to gleam from her that she played bass, and occasionally sang lead vocals- a role that I was surprised at- shy and quiet Sakaki, on lead vocals in a "light" band? It was bizarre.

As I reached the clubroom, I said my goodbyes and entered, only to come face-to-face with Haruhi, arms crossed and frowning. Oh dear.

"Who were you just talking to?" She said, her stare ice-cold.

"D...don't frighten me like that!" I exclaimed.

"Humph. It was that Sakaki, wasn't it? I knew it. I also know that she's part of that "light" club...Don't you think of converting there just so you can perv on her, Kyon!" Haruhi snapped.

"Alright, alright, give me a break already..." I had been there for 20 seconds and I was already exhausted. Saying brief helloes to Koizumi(Smiling creepily as usual), Nagato (Expressing no emotion, as usual) and Asahina (Who, looking delightful in a maid's outfit, served me some tea with a broad smile), then followed everyone's lead- I turned to our illustrious leader, to see what she had in mind for today.

"Okay, everyone! Today I-"

Her speech was suddenly cut off by the sound of the door slamming open. Our heads jerked up in surprise, to see a short girl with long, blue hair and a curl atop her head walk into the room. Her face held the expression of someone so relaxed, they could be asleep and no one would notice. Yeah, this was Izumi all right. Behind her were two purple-haired girls, one with short and one with long hair.

"S...sis, you didn't have to bang the door open like that..." The short-haired girl said, smiling awkwardly. I think her name was Tsukasa. I hadn't had much contact with her or her sister. Or Izumi, for that matter.

"Yeah? Well Shorty here had us walking around every clubroom in the school looking for this one, I think I have the right to be a little pissed off!" The long-haired girl replied. Her face was sharper, and angrier.

"Alright, Kagamin, we're done now. You girls can go home, I'll see you later." Izumi said, still smiling aimlessly. Her speech was almost too laid-back.

"Oh no, we are not done, Konata. You owe me big for this." "Kagamin" threatened, before slamming the door shut.

"Wow, she sure seemed angry, didn't she?" Izumi said, before walking past everyone, helping herself to some tea, and taking a seat.

"So, what're we all doing? Something fun?"

At this, Haruhi marched over and dragged her out of her seat, and over to the chalkboard. There was silence for a few minutes. Predictably, Haruhi was the one to break it.

"Okay!" She exclaimed. "Everyone, please welcome our special guest- Miss Konata Izumi!"

We applauded- Haruhi, Asahina and Koizumi more than Nagato and I. Konata looked slightly perplexed, but suddenly realised why she was there.

"Oh, of course. Thanks, you guys." She said, her expression staying the same.

"And now, Miss Izumi will illustrate for us the odd and truly ALIEN life form that walks among us. This girl's so spacey, she can't even tell the difference between a cupcake and a cup and saucer, an escalator and an elevator, even! That's right, I'm talking about the one and only, Kasuga Ayu-"

She was interrupted again by the creaking of the door, which made a nice change from the slamming earlier.

"Uhm...excuse me...but is this the "SOS Brigade clubroom? Ah wasn't sure, ah thought ah'd gotten lost..."

That trademark drawl could only be the voice of one person. Ayumu.

"Oh, yes! Yes! Here she is, everyone! Kasuga Ayumu, AKA...O-saka!!" Haruhi declared. Izumi joined in, yelling "Yeah!"

"Oh...then ah guess you were right, Chiyo-chan. Thanks fer walkin' with me."

"No problem, Miss Osaka! I'll see you tomorrow!" A high-pitched voice from outside the clubroom said. I envied her freedom.

"So, uh..." Osaka said, closing the door. "What did y'all wanna see me for, anyhow? I probably shouldn't stay here too long, ah gotta get home..."

Haruhi seemed to ignore that Osaka had said anything.

"Do you see, my loyal Brigade members? The wide, lightless eyes! The dopey, spaced-out expression! The bizarre mannerisms of her speech!"

"Not to mention all that weird crap she comes out with!" Konata continued, her face now as wide and enthusiastic as Haruhi's. "Seriously you guys, how could she not be an alien?"

"Yeah, you guys!"

"Uh...f...fine and all, but...do you have to get so close to me when you say that?" I said.

The two of them had worked their way forward, and were now inches away from my face.

"Well, Kyon, you're always the one who's sceptical about this kind of thing. So closed-minded..." She said to Konata, who nodded.

"I say he needs to be initiated into our way of thinking, somehow." Konata replied.

"Oy, oy. I'm fine thinking like a sensible person, thanks." I said. Haruhi huffed, shrugged her shoulders, and turned back to Osaka.

"Anyway, Konata. It's common knowledge that aliens always have markings on them, right?" Haruhi said.

"Oh, yeah! It's a sign from their home planet! So they can return without the aliens becoming suspicious!" Her partner in crime replied.

"So! Osaka! Where's your marking?" Haruhi exclaimed, baffling the girl.

"Is it on your back?" Konata inquired.

"No, no, it's on the back of her ear! Right?"

"No, her stomach!"

"Her chest!"

"Her butt!"

As the frenzied debate continued, I turned to Koizumi.

"So, uh, why are we here again?"

"Well, obviously it's to keep Haruhi happy. And to stop her from destroying the universe." He said, continuing to smile.

"W...well, yes, I know that." I gave up.

"Well, we did all want to talk with you anyway." He continued. "And seeing as Haruhi appears to be preoccupied, I don't think she'll mind if we slip out a little earlier."

I looked over at Haruhi and Izumi, who were frantically attempting to get Osaka's shirt off...and mostly succeeding.

"Ah've told ya! Ain't no markings on mah butt! Ah check there every night and there's nothin'!" The poor girl was saying. I felt sorry for her.

"What did you want to talk to me about? Usually it involves Haruhi, so I'm guessing that's the situation this time..." I said.

"Yes, it involves Haruhi. And her." Koizumi pointed at Osaka, who was now trying to hold her skirt to her waist. They had clearly given up on trying to get her shirt off.

"Then I think now's the best time to duck out." I said, looking at Asahina as I did. She nodded, and we both made our move. Koizumi motioned to Nagato, who nodded slightly and followed us. It was unfortunate that Haruhi managed to spot us.

"Oh, you're leaving early, huh? Well I guess I can let you just this once." She said, taking a break from trying to pry Osaka's skirt off. "But be warned! Any case of mutiny, or planning mutiny against your Brigade member will be met with severe punishment! I'm warning you all!"

"Yeah, yeah, we get it." I said. Koizumi nodded, and Asahina froze at the sound of Haruhi's voice, before nodding furiously, a serious expression on her face. Clearly, she didn't want to be manhandled by Suzumiya anymore. With that, Haruhi nodded to us and we opened the door to see a girl staring into the clubroom through the window-pane. She recoiled in shock at the sight of us.

"O...oh! Hello..." She said, shyly. She seemed to be in our year, and was quite a pretty young girl- long blonde hair, a soft expression, yet her distinguishing features were her rather large, blonde eyebrows.

"Uhm...well, I was just stepping out to get...I thought I saw...I do apologise!" She said, blushing, before running down the corridor and ducking into a clubroom on the left. As she opened the door, I thought I heard the sound of guitars and drums. Maybe that was the light music club. Or "Keion", rather.

"Ah...I could have sworn she was staring at Suzumiya and Izumi there. Is young love not so sweet, this time of year?" Koizumi mused, his smile ever on his face.

"Let's not go into "that" kind of love..." I said, and the four of us took off walking, setting the destination for our talk as being a cafe that the SOS Brigade frequents often.


	3. Chapter III: A Strange Conversation

As we walked there, Koizumi, Asahina and I had made small talk- never mentioning the subject that we were to discuss, except for the fact that we were to meet someone there. This statement was confusing- who, other than the four of us, knew about Haruhi's Godlike capabilities? And then another thought- if there was already an Esper, an alien and a time traveller around Haruhi, exactly what was this being? None of these thoughts were particularly comforting, so I decided to ignore them until we reached the cafe.

I saw him as soon as we entered the cafe, and right away I knew that he was the one we were going to meet. He was the only "bizarre" looking person in the place- where everyone else was wearing casual clothes, he was dressed in a long, blue coat and hat to match. The uniform of a high school student in the 80s, I think. Although he was dressed like a student, he sure didn't look it- he was way more muscular than Koizumi and I put together, and seemed taller, too. A giant, maybe? Nah, he's too small, I thought. Small in a giant sense, that is.

He nodded a brief "hello" to us as we sat down, and we returned it. All of us except Nagato, that is. We ordered drinks, then got down to business.

"Kyon." Koizumi said, still smiling. The guy was perpetually happy. "This is Jotaro Kujo. I think we can consider him a "client" of the SOS Brigade."

"Give me a break. That sounds like kid's stuff. I didn't come here to play games, Koizumi. I'm here to talk about that Suzumiya girl, that "God" you told me about." Kujo said, rolling his eyes. The man had an aura of arrogance about him...or was it just annoyance? I didn't know.

"Of course, of course. I apologise." Koizumi replied. Jotaro nodded, before picking up a beer can I had just noticed in front of him. With a fountain pen, he plunged a hole into the bottom of it, and began drinking. Miss Asahina, who had been growing more and more nervous beside me, let out a small whimper at the sight of this. I was thankful when our drinks came a second later.

"So then, shall I start the meeting?" Koizumi said. There were nods of approval from Asahina and me, and nothing from Kujo and Nagato.

"I'll start by addressing you, Kyon. Have you been realising that recently, things have happened that you don't feel are quite...right?"

"You've lost me right away." I admitted.

"Well," he started again. "Have you noticed the arrivals of many, many new people around school, for example? Izumi for one?"

I thought for a moment. Sure, I had forgotten the names of Sakaki, Ayumu and the others this morning, but I had remembered them eventually. The same with the purple-haired girls, the Hiiragis, I now recalled. I looked at Koizumi, puzzled, and he sighed. Kujo was staring into the distance. He struck me as the perceptive type.

"Do you remember Tomo Takino?" Koizumi continued. "This year's Sports Fest? The one who took off running at the start and led the race for the first 800 metres, then fell right to the back?"

"Well, yeah, I..." Then I froze. Sports Fest? I knew it existed but...had I ever participated in one? I had to have...why couldn't I remember? These were the thoughts that echoed in my brain. I couldn't find an answer for one of them.

"Just as I thought." Koizumi said, holding his hands out in a "thought so" pose. "Then, Nagato, it is just as we feared.

"Confirmed." Nagato said, stoically.

"Wh...what's going on?" I exclaimed. "Why can't I remember anything from before today?"

In my mind, I knew the answer. And (Creepily, I might add) Koizumi knew that I knew. He laughed, softly, then said the words.

"Haruhi Suzumiya."

There was silence for a moment as we sipped our drinks. Then, he began to explain. I noticed Kujo listening in- clearly he was waiting for this moment. It made me wonder why Koizumi had gone to the bother of setting the whole thing up.

"The universe we're in now...well, I suppose it would be fair to say that this isn't our original universe."

"Our?" I was perplexed. "So everyone's been abducted somehow?"

"You're close. Do you know of the many-worlds theory? Essentially, every action we take sets us on a timeline. The timeline that you know as being "life" is basically just built up of you taking actions, and making decisions. You understand?"

"Well, if you reduce it to that, then yeah, I understand." I said. Kujo nodded, too.

"Well, have you ever thought of the what-ifs? Say you're split between buying chocolate cake and lemon cake at a cafe. You go for the chocolate cake, and all afterwards you know "I bought the chocolate cake, not the lemon cake". However, when you made that decision, your timeline cut into two, one where you bought chocolate, and one where you bought lemon. And thus, two worlds, or universes, were created- one world with lemony Kyon, and one with chocolatey Kyon."

"So I do both things, regardless of what I choose?" I replied. I was a little confused.

"Basically, yeah. Only you create two different universes, you don't do both things in one universe. Unless you're greedy, that is." Koizumi chuckled. Kujo wasn't amused

"Give me a break. When're you gonna get to the point, Koizumi?" He said, rolling his eyes.

"Soon, soon. I promise the lecture won't take much longer." Koizumi chuckled. "So then, this means that there must be an infinite number of worlds, judging by the amount of decisions a person takes, the amount of people that exist, and so on and so forth."

"Okay." I replied. Kujo seemed satisfied with this explanation. He was intimidating.

"Now, getting to the point. Haruhi seems to have made the universes...clash. So, say you exist in one universe, but not in another. I don't know...let's say in one universe, you weren't born, you don't exist. Instead, the Hiiragis and Izumi exist."

"Wait, wait." I interrupted. "So the Hiiragis, and Izumi...they're from a different universe?"

"A different universe to you, yes." Koizumi replied. "It seems that Haruhi has managed to fuse all of these different universes together, and now here we are. If you can't remember very far back, it must mean that the universe isn't very well formed yet."

"Hold on a minute." Kujo said. He was leaning on his elbow as if to say "no way is this right". "Even with the Godlike powers that you say she has, Koizumi, there's no way a schoolgirl could summon up enough power to create a whole new universe, especially if she's doing it unawares."

"Well, you're right." Koizumi replied. "Which is why we're afraid that there are other forces at work. Miss Asahina, wasn't it you that first realised this?"

"Y...yes." Asahina said. Her voice was quiet and shy. I thought she sounded ashamed, also. "It was at a point not too long ago...I discovered I could no longer return to the future. There's a time in the future that seems to be...blocking me. There's a strong force...it seems supernatural...and I can't get any further into the future..."

Miss Asahina, at this point, became overcome with emotion and shame, so I put my arm on her shoulder to comfort her. Kujo raised an eyebrow at the sight of this, but did nothing else.

"Nagato also says that she detected a massive burst of energy, similar to the signal Haruhi gives out. This was earlier today, right Yuki?" Koizumi continued.

"Yes. At 9.00 am, this universe came into existence. Two similarly sized energy quakes detected- those of Haruhi Suzumiya and Kasuga Ayumu." Nagato explained in her usual, lifeless voice.

"Wh...whoa, wait, Ayumu's like Haruhi? Like a...God?" I gasped. I could only begin to comprehend what might happen if two God-like beings, with the power to control reality both unleashed their abilities. I had temporarily forgotten my amazement at the universe only having existed for a matter of hours.

"Not exactly. Although Haruhi may be God, and she may have created this universe by fusing others together...Ayumu is something different. She-"

"Wait a minute. Before you go on..."

Everyone turned to Kujo, the one who had interrupted Koizumi.

"You all go on about the universe being only this old, and you all act as though you know nothing about the universes you used to be in..." Kujo began. "But in which case, why do both her-" (Indicating Nagato) "and me remember that this is a new universe?"

Koizumi couldn't answer this. Everyone sat in thought for a moment, then Nagato spoke.

"I sense another data mass within you. A second you. That is the anchor holding you to your original universe." She said. Kujo took a moment, then nodded.

"Yeah, that's right. So whereas everyone else is a clone of themselves from a former universe, I'm the original me, right?" He said. Nagato nodded.

"That would make sense." Koizumi smiled, then addressed us all. "Nagato is somewhat similar. Because she's an alien entity made completely of data...the Nagato you see before you here is the one that exists in every universe with a Nagato in it. That's why she knows who she is."

"R...right." I understood now. So, linking together Ayumu being like Haruhi and Miss Asahina being unable to return to the future...I had a very bad feeling about the situation.

"And I should probably explain about Kujo here...he carries within him a strong spiritual presence that he calls a "Stand". I think it's pretty much a guardian spirit, right?" Koizumi said, interrupting my train of thought as usual. Kujo nodded. "And we've concluded that the Stand is composed of similar energy to Nagato. Whether that means the Integrated Data Entity that created Nagato is responsible for Kujo's Stand...I don't know. Nonetheless, it makes Jotaro here a valuable ally."

Everyone sort of nodded in Kujo's direction, then went back to drinking. We ordered seconds, even though the meeting was practically over. Unfortunately, this gave me time to get back to my earlier stream of thought, bringing up the same feeling of dread I had earlier.

"M...Miss Asahina," I began. Everyone turned to face me. "Remember what you told me about...about 3 years ago? About you not being able to travel that far back in time?"

"Yes, I remember." Asahina replied.

"It was because of Suzumiya, wasn't it? Didn't Suzumiya close the door to the past?"

"Yes, she did, but...if we're to take Nagato's word and we really are in a different universe, then will it still be closed?"

Asahina paused to think, giving Koizumi enough time to interject.

"Well, I can explain this one. The universe hasn't developed that far yet. Last year has barely been constructed, let alone three years ago. So I'm guessing you couldn't go back, either way..."

"Oh. There goes my theory. I figured Ayumu had closed the path to the future, just as Suzumiya closed the path to the past." I said, prompting everyone into silence again. Surprisingly, Kujo was the one to break it.

"No, wait...your theory may still hold some water, Kyon." He said, gazing across the restaurant. "Asahina, how far forward can you travel in time? Without getting blocked, I mean."

"W...well..." Miss Asahina seemed intimidated. "Next week, there's a concert. The light music club are performing, and I can't go any further than...wait..."

"It seems you've realised it." Kujo said, turning his attention to the table. "Where's the logic in that? Why would the universe only start developing a past, and not a future? If we're taking into account that Asahina here is a time traveller and comes from the future, then she shouldn't be here, if the future hasn't been created in this universe yet."

"You're...you're right." Koizumi said. He seemed surprised. "N...Nagato, how much of the past has been constructed?"

Nagato continued to blankly stare forward, before answering.

"Construction of the past came to a halt at January this year. Construction of the future came to a halt on the 21st of this month."

I could see Asahina growing nervous.

"A...Asahina...what was the date of the end-of-school concert?" I asked. Deep in my mind, I already knew the answer.

"T....the 21st..." She replied, confirming everyone's fears.

"There has to be a reason for both the past and the future being locked like this." Koizumi said. "Suzumiya has no idea that she has these Godlike powers, yet something like this is so ordered...I think we can suspect Ayumu of being the one who closed the doors to the past and future."

Everyone nodded. After all, why would Haruhi want to close off the past in a new universe?

"One final thing. Nagato brought my attention to the new planet, discovered by the Astronomy Club. Does this sound weird to anyone?" Koizumi asked.

"Well, of course." I replied. "How could a high-school astronomy club be the first to discover a planet twice the size of Jupiter?"

"That's right. How is that possible, when there are hundreds of astronomers that could have found it first, no, that WOULD have found it first?"

I nodded, as did Kujo. Asahina was staring at Koizumi in shock.

"The conclusion I reached, and that Nagato backed up, is this- the only things in this universe that exist are this town, and that planet. We may know of Japan, other countries and even other planets, but they don't physically exist. Otherwise, the planet would have been discovered before."

"So, what does this all mean?" I asked.

"Well, it means that someone other than Haruhi had plans for this universe. Another "God"."

"Ayumu..." Kujo murmured.

"That's right." Koizumi smiled. "This universe, therefore, was born out of the wills of Haruhi Suzumiya and Kasuga Ayumu. And if all Haruhi wanted was to combine interesting individuals from other universes to her own, then obviously Ayumu had further plans. She must have wanted us to realise the existence of this planet. She must also have wanted to block off the doors to the future and past."

Everyone stared at Koizumi in shock.

"Nagato, tell everyone here what you told me. About the planet's name, and its inhabitants."

"Full data bank was not accessible." She said. "The name of the planet is Yuggoth. It hosts an ecosystem far beyond human understanding, and is home to beings that defy human perception. I cannot describe them in a method everyone here would understand."

"S...so, Ayumu is...?" I stuttered. Koizumi nodded.

"From Yuggoth? Yeah, I think that's the best assumption we can come up with right now. Only Yuggoth must be from another universe, so...we can't really be sure that Ayumu's an alien as such...maybe she just has a strong connection with the planet. Nonetheless." Koizumi summed up, "There's a grey area over her intentions. We can't decide whether they're good or bad...I'm afraid we just have to wait until the end-of-school concert."

After this, we finished our drinks in silence, thinking about everything we'd discussed. Afterwards, we paid the bill (And I realised afterwards that I'd paid most of it) and left, Kujo going one way and Nagato and Asahina another. This left me with Koizumi, and we made small talk, not mentioning much of what we'd discussed. To be honest, I was still trying to get my head around it.


	4. Being and Ayumu

The next week was somewhat interesting. Not due to the SOS Brigade meetings- they pretty much involved Suzumiya and occasionally Izumi interrogating Ayumu about her home planet. No, it was interesting because I was constantly looking around, trying to identify people that I could name off of the top of my head, people that I knew were from my universe. This, however, led to me looking incredibly paranoid, a condition noticed by my friend and constant harasser, Tamaguchi. He decided to confront me about it as we changed our shoes to go home one day. I think it was the 19th.

"You've been looking weirder and weirder lately, Kyon." He noticed. "I see you've seen looking at girls a lot- did Suzumiya finally let you out of her clutches?"

"I told you, I'm not in Suzumiya's clutches." I replied. "The setup's different to what you think anyway, Mr Rating System."

"Whatever you say, Kyon. You make it look like you're totally apathetic to the whole girl thing, but I saw you eyeing up Sakaki the other day, and don't get me started on that Madaraki girl you walk to school with every so often."

"Ugh, I can't even begin to tell you how wrong you are." I sighed. "Madaraki and I have been friends for quite some time. Ever since I started walking to school in the direction I do, anyway. And I happened to be walking with Sakaki, too. You're one of those people who thinks kissing gets a girl pregnant, aren't you?"

"All I can say is, it's somewhat of a drop in standards from Sakaki to Madaraki." Yamaguchi continued, totally disregarding everything I'd said. "Sakaki's an A+, whereas Madaraki comes in as a C. Sure she's cute, but she's got that eerie vibe about her, as if she's just risen from a grave or something. You're not a necro, are you Kyon?"

"Honestly, I don't see where you get all of these ideas about me and girls. Why you're measuring me against the same stick as a skirt-chaser like you, I don't know." I said, somewhat bitterly. I knew Tamaguchi wouldn't take offence.

"Well, we'll soon see, Kyon. Are you coming?" We had walked outside school, and I had paused to wait.

"I promised Fran I'd walk her part of the way home. She says she doesn't have her sister with her today." I said. Her sister had apparently broken her arm, and Fran had fixed her up with an operation.

"Oh, you're on first name terms with Madaraki, huh? I should've known. I'll go ahead then. See you later, Kyon."

"See you."

After Tamaguchi had left, I resumed my exercise of staring at students in crowds and naming them- probably not a good test of who was or wasn't from my universe, as I hardly interacted with anyone from the other years. I managed to name one or two- Haruhi Fujioka from 2nd year, as well as Jonouchi and Honda from the 3rd year- but others eluded me. In the end, I was only naming figures that had been talked about a lot recently, such as Mutou, the guy who constantly wore an Egyptian artefact around his neck, which was rumoured to give him otherworldly abilities. Kobayakawa also- the running back for the school's American Football team, rumoured to have almost demonic speed. Most names, however, simply passed me by, and I became more and more blurred about who was from my universe and who wasn't.

"Hey, Kyon~? I'm here, we can go now~" A dazed-sounding voice from beside me said. It was Fran.

"Oh, hey Fran. How did you find school today?" I asked, as we began to walk. Fran, like Sakaki, was one of the few people I actually tried to make conversation with, partly because she wouldn't speak first.

"It was busy...I had to change the pigment in someone's eyes for cosplay~, I had to convert someone's breast into a small holding pouch~, and Takino from your class booked her friend in for liposuction but she didn't have the money and I think she was joking...~"

"Wait, Fran...what about lessons?"

"Oh...~" Fran tilted her head to one side, in thought. "Well, lessons went kind of downhill after I was in biology...we were doing dissection, and I finished before everyone else, so I played around and made a Frog-Rat...~"

"I...I see." Fran liked to talk about her experiments. I figured that she was exaggerating most of the time, but I wasn't so sure. She liked to describe her projects in graphic detail, detail that often had me queasy by homeroom. I changed the subject a lot- love was a favourite of Fran's, so I usually mentioned couples I'd seen around school. When all else failed, I fell back on Urameshi and Yukimura, a couple rumoured to be steps away from dating, due to their "husband and wife" style squabbling. The only problem was that this made Fran even more enthusiastic, claiming she could think of a way to "help" them, should they wish it. From what she had told me, Fran's idea of helping wasn't exactly orthodox.

As much as I liked Fran as a friend, there was only so much of her I could take before I started feeling queasy. My current doubts about who was or wasn't from my universe only served to accelerate this queasiness. I felt bad about it, but I decided to take a different route home. Saying my goodbyes to Fran, I continued, reaching home only 5 minutes later than usual. I felt familiar with home, thank goodness. The universe collision must not have affected families- my sister was still my sister, as irritating as I sometimes found her. Still, home was a nice reprieve from my nagging existential doubts.

It was 2 hours later, at around 7, that I got the call from Koizumi telling me to go meet him, Miss Asahina, Nagato and Kujo at a park about 10 minutes from my house. As I had known when I picked the call up, it was another meeting about Suzumiya and Ayumu. Giving a flimsy excuse, I ducked out at 7:30 and reached the park at about 7:45. Judging by Koizumi's expression, it was bad news. He wasn't smiling.

"Glad you made it, Kyon." He managed a half-hearted greeting. I just told him to get down to business.

"Alright. I guess there's no time to mess around." He said. "I'll hand over to Nagato. She's the one who's experiencing all of this, anyway."

Nagato nodded slightly, then stepped forward.

"Universe collision has accelerated at an incredible rate. Around 10,000 universes have fused with Haruhi Suzumiya's original universe in the past week. The continents of North America and Europe have now been completely populated by beings from other universes. Further fusion may cause instability, leading to dimensional collapse."

I was shocked.

"C...collapse? But why? If it was alright a week ago, why not now?" I stuttered.

"It's the result of too many universes being fused with one universe. You'd think that the fusion would create a whole new universe, but instead it's more like other universes are attached to this one- the doppelganger of our original universe." Koizumi explained. "This causes the universe to become overburdened and unstable."

"And Suzumiya's doing this?" I asked.

"It's hard to tell. Given what we concluded about Ayumu, I think it's more likely that she's behind it. Then again, Suzumiya has no idea of what she's doing, so she's probably wishing for more and more interesting things, and Ayumu is knowingly allowing her to do so. Maybe Ayumu isn't collaborating with Suzumiya to create this universe, but she's enhancing Suzumiya's abilities. I think we can conclude one thing- Ayumu is an enemy."

"Of course, Ayumu might also be doing it because she wants more interesting things in the world." Kujo said. I'd forgotten he was there.

"That's another possibility, sure." Koizumi replied, nodding. "But nonetheless, it can only end in the destruction of the universe, and that's not a good thing."

Kujo nodded in agreement and we all confirmed that Ayumu had to be stopped...somehow. Nagato mentioned working on some sort of "program" to alter Ayumu's data makeup if things got to breaking point, and Kujo told us about "Star Platinum", his spiritual guardian that possessed super-strength. Of course, I didn't advocate punching out a meek, fragile-looking high school girl without an exceptionally good reason, so Kujo confirmed that he would only do it if things got desperate. We said we'd talk more about it the following day and went our separate ways.

Luckily, I got to walk home with Miss Asahina, who was terribly distressed about the whole situation and wished she could do more to help. I reassured her as best I could when taking her abilities into question, saying that if the universe did end, she could simply go back in time and reverse it. She then countered by saying that if the universe ended, there would be no past to go back to. On this depressing note, she apologised and thanked me for trying to cheer her up, and we departed. Although she was kind enough to thank me, it still sent me home with gloomier thoughts than I had come out with.


	5. The Pantyshot at the End of the Universe

And then it was the 20th. As I got ready for school, I couldn't help but think how the last week had gone by incredibly fast. It felt like I had only had the first meeting with Koizumi and the others a couple of days ago, and that the end of year festival was still in a week's time. I used to have a habit of procrastinating, and I could feel it coming back- I kept thinking "No, no, just another week. Please don't let the universe end this week". Stupid thoughts, of course, although you could probably imagine my desperation. Having lived through one end-of-world scenario with Haruhi, I wasn't particularly looking forward to experiencing another one.

I met up with Fran on the way to school, but her discussion points didn't really set my mind at ease so much as disturbed it further. She seemed more upbeat than usual, although still somewhat spacey. When I questioned her about this, she told me that she had been talking to her friend "Iigoronacku" or something, and that he lived in a wall and liked people to give him attention. Or to attend to him. Or something. Knowing Fran's horror stories, he was probably some mutant creature she had created, that fed on humans. Even relaying this information now gives me shivers.

Taniguchi was the next to greet me, while I was changing my outdoor shoes for indoor ones, and he spouted more of his senseless banter. In the mix, he also threw in the occasional invite to hang out with him and Kunikida, yet asking me not to bring along Suzumiya, Nagato or Koizumi, in case "something weird" happened. He feverishly requested I bring along Miss Asahina, however. Typical Taniguchi.

And of course, while I was sitting down, waiting for homeroom to start, in bounds Haruhi, Izumi at her side. They'd been plotting something in secret all week, and I noticed that they were both wearing wide grins on their faces, meaning either they were going to tell me about it or they were going to draft me into their scheme. I had a bad feeling about it, either way.

"Hey, Kyon." Haruhi whispered, without even so much as a good morning. "We've just been to the costume designer for the Keion club, and..."

"Whoa, hold on, Haruhi! Do you really want him getting in on our plan?" Izumi exclaimed, startling the whole room.

"Don't worry about it, Konata!" Haruhi yelled back, eclipsing Izumi's voice entirely. "So anyway, we went to Sawako, the supervisor and costume designer for the Keion club, and we found out what Miss Sakaki's gonna be wearing today..."

Alarm bells. Miss Sakaki again. Haruhi was probably referencing her on-stage costume for when she was to perform with the Keion club. Thankfully, she was on the other side of the room with Takino, Mihama and the others, so she couldn't hear what embarrassing crap Haruhi had planned. Although, when I thought about it, that was probably what Haruhi had counted on.

"She's wearing a maid outfit! So moe." Izumi said, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "It's gonna be super-short too, from what I hear."

"Yeah, although it'll have to be about knee length, Sawako said. School rules." Haruhi murmured, disappointed. "Nonetheless, it doesn't interfere with our plan. What we're going to do is we're going to get a perfect panty shot of Miss Sakaki~."

At this point, I froze. A panty shot of Miss Sakaki. The concept was so...unthinkably cruel that I was surprised even Haruhi had come up with it. Then again, Haruhi had just co-created an entire new universe. Who knew what had happened to her mind after that?

"It was my idea, so don't take all the credit for it." Izumi glared at Haruhi. Oh, that explains it, I thought. At least the God's mind is relatively sane. The problem lay in the plan itself- they were setting up fireworks all around the stage, so that after the performance was over, they could let them all off and shock Sakaki off her feet, throwing her legs in the air and...for my sake, I'd probably better not relay the rest. Let's just say that my job was to take a photograph, thus allowing Haruhi to copy it repeatedly and sell it round the school, as she did with Miss Asahina and the bunny girl photo earlier this year. Her excuse was that it "raised valuable money for the SOS Brigade", which, in my mind, anyway, was a valid excuse for anything other than "taking embarrassing photos of classmates and selling them". Besides, Haruhi could just bribe and blackmail until she got what she wanted, she'd done it before. Therefore, I concluded that her real reason for taking this photo was "because I can", a reason which applied to pretty much everything else Haruhi did.

"Alright, alright, shut up and siddown!"

Miss Tanizaki was late, as usual. By the state of her hair, she'd slept in until about 5 minutes before lessons started. Izumi got up to leave, before addressing Tanizaki at the front.

"Hey, Yukari-chan. Nice going last night- I've never ever seen a rare drop like the one you got!"

"Izumi, please go back to your own class, now." Tanizaki said, trying her best to keep calm. "Oh yeah, and tell Kuroi that there's no way she's beating me on Street Fighter again. EVER."

Izumi smiled her catlike smile and bounced out of the class. The way everyone was acting, you'd think it was just a normal day, not the last day...ever. Haruhi was also filled with boundless energy as usual, yet it didn't annoy me so much. If a cheap comedian could see me now, he'd say I had the "End of the World Blues". I always hated those comedians.

When it got to lunchtime, Konata and Haruhi disappeared, presumably to set up the fireworks. In all honesty, there was a very slim chance of the plan working, but I was so preoccupied with the end of the Universe that I didn't think too hard about it. Plus, I really didn't care about it in the first place.

Koizumi found me and filled me in on their plan for the event that things came to breaking point. Nagato and Kujo would hold off Ayumu with their powers, while Koizumi would deal with any new pocket dimensions, or "closed spaces", caused by Haruhi's emotional response to the events. It was here that I asked- exactly what were these events? Koizumi, as usual, offered no clear answer, simply describing them vaguely as involving "a massive energy outflow". It didn't really leave much to the imagination, and what it did leave was all negative. Nonetheless, I couldn't really do anything except wait and see what happened. I hate when that's the case.


	6. Havoc Theatre

The performance came around relatively quickly, although I guess I was pretty busy hanging around with Taniguchi and Kunikida while they stared at girls. My aim in this was to keep my mind off of the inevitable catastrophe that Koizumi had alluded to, but in the end my mind just kept drifting back onto the topic. I was mostly concerned about how Koizumi still seemed worried about Ayumu, when there were 5 of us there against her. That is, if you include me.

It was while I was walking along the upstairs corridor, an hour before the performance, when I figured it out. Koizumi was afraid more of how Haruhi would react. Maybe Ayumu's plan all along was not to try and destroy this universe, but to force Suzumiya into destroying it involuntarily. Of course, I may have been using a bit too much imagination at this point, but it was a valid concern.

In the middle of another apocalyptic thought, I found myself suddenly brought to a standstill. Snapping out of my daydream, I followed the arm on my chest forward with my eyes, before landing on the face of Kagami, Izumi's friend. At least, I think they're friends.

"Have you seen Konata anywhere? She's friends with Haruhi, right?" She demanded. I noticed that she seemed pretty shaken up, which I could guess was due to last-minute preparations for the concert. She did have a student council armband and a clipboard, after all.

"Uh..." I mumbled, trying to think if Haruhi had given me any orders involving explaining her plan to student council members. "Yeah, I think Konata and Haruhi went to check out the stage or...something."

"Check out the stage?! Oh, dammit, that can't be good, that can't be good...uh, thanks." And with that, she was gone, rushing back down the corridor the same way she had come. It seemed that this particular corridor was a beehive for student councillors- in the space of a minute, I saw Nodoka, Kitsu and Takara rushing up and down the same one. My thoughts got back to the performance, and I realised that I now had two things to be concerned about- the end of the universe, and the setting-off of Haruhi's fireworks, the latter of which would be sure to make me wince with pity and embarrassment.

And, sooner than I'd have preferred, it was upon us. The entire student body made its way to the theatre, and I left Kunikida and Taniguchi to go ahead with them. I was somehow landed with the responsibility of sitting next to Haruhi and observing her behaviour and reactions. Just great. Koizumi owed me big for this.

After a few minutes of waiting by the entrance, Haruhi came along, and I pushed through the crowd to her. To my dismay, I noticed Izumi next to her, the annoying grin still on her face.

"Hey." I said, trying to be at least a little pleasant.

"...hey." Haruhi replied, looking at me oddly. "Why aren't you in there already?"

"Well," I quickly came up with something. "I'm keeping an eye on you and your little friend there."

"Huh. Well you're too late. Everything's set up, and the plan's going ahead. Looks like you failed, huh?" Haruhi was characteristically dismissive.

"And what do you mean "keep an eye" on us anyway, huh?" Izumi said. "That's just creepy, you pervert!"

"Look who's talking." I murmured. After that, Izumi whispered something into Haruhi's ear, then giggled and disappeared into the crowd. After she did so, Haruhi slyly grinned, then turned to me. After about a minute of this, I had to ask.

"Why're you looking at me like that? At least say something."

"Oh, I think you know, Kyon. You're all excited for this, aren't you?"

By this time, we had taken our seats on the left side of the theatre. I managed to locate Nagato in the seated students, but Kujo, Miss Asahina and Koizumi were nowhere to be seen. This was probably a good thing- if I'd seen Koizumi, I'd have dragged him over to watch Haruhi himself.

"Why would I be excited?" I asked, not exactly paying full attention. Could you blame me, seeing as the end of the universe could be minutes away?

"Because you know you totally want a shot of that Sakaki girl's panties." She declared, making no attempt to be subtle and quiet. To be honest, I didn't expect her to.

"What?" This snapped me back into reality. "What the Hell're you talking about? Keep it down!"

I noticed that some of the people around us were staring at us, suspiciously.

"Oh, don't try and lie to me, Kyon. What good's a Brigade leader who doesn't know her members? Don't worry, I'll sell one to you for half price!" She was still loud as ever, and the suspicions of the ones around us were confirmed. I heard the guy behind me laughing obnoxiously and straight away decided that I'd be forcing Koizumi to pay up big time after this was all over.

We weren't waiting long before the lights dimmed and the curtain rose to a round of applause. The first member I noticed was the girl standing behind the drumkit, her hair held back by a yellow headband and wearing her normal school uniform. The reason I specified her school uniform is because the keyboardist, who I recognised as being the blonde-haired girl peeking through the window of the clubroom earlier, was dressed in what was clearly a pink Nurse's outfit, complete with the little hat. I'm pretty sure I had the same reaction as most people in the room when my mouth hung open in amazement.

"I could set them off now and get a picture of her..." Haruhi whispered in my ear. I shook off my expression and gave her a "shut the hell up" glare. She simply grinned and turned her eyes back to the front.

By this time, a girl with a guitar had entered the stage. I saw that she was wearing a blue school swimsuit, and no shoes. She was smiling as if it was Christmas, not at all looking as though she was cold or awkward. This band was, without a doubt, the weirdest-looking lineup I'd ever seen.

However, I probably shouldn't have judged before Sakaki arrived on stage- she walked on slightly nervously, wearing none other than a black maid's outfit, complete with frills all over. I'm pretty sure most of the guys in the audience were pleased that whoever made her outfit had cut the top about as low as it could go without exposing her- although I have to say, I wouldn't have protested against it.

Despite the fact that Sakaki had told me she was taking care of vocals, it was the guitarist that opened the performance with a speech into the mic. Trust me, it was a speech in the fullest sense of the word.

"Um, hello everyone!" She began, her voice sounding like she had a really sore throat. She still seemed bubbly and happy, though. "We are the light music club! It's been such a long year, and didn't everyone find the exams so hard? It was so horrible! I had to cram all-night one night before the exam, and another night Ritsu had to come over with Mio and help me out, so I was so glad when they were done and we were all able to play together in this band again!"

She moved away from the mic, and I heard the drummer counting in the song, when-

"Oh, Ritsu is our drummer, and Mugi is our keyboard player. Mio is Ritsu's friend, and she wrote lyrics to a couple of our songs, but she didn't want to play in the band, so Sakaki said she'd join. Sakaki is our bassist."

There were a couple more seconds of silence, then Ritsu began to count in again-

"Oh, but it's not like Mio didn't want to join because we're bad people! Really, some of you should join next year, we really need another guita-"

A drumstick flew from behind the drumkit, hitting the guitarist in the back of the head. As she recoiled, I heard Ritsu hiss something to her. The guitarist quickly nodded and turned back for the last time.

"O-okay, please enjoy our first song! This was written by our bassist, Sakaki! It's called- Nekoneko Time!"

Yet as the band burst into life, a shining pink flash engulfed the room. I had no idea where it came from, but as soon as it did, the power for the entire theatre suddenly died. The amps faded into nothingness, and the lights all vanished. An excited murmur began to rise from the audience, not least from Haruhi, who repeatedly pestered me with "What was that? What was that? Did you see that flash, Kyon? What was it?"

As the teachers rushed about, trying frantically to sort out what the problem was, the pink flash came again, this time continuing to shine, rather than simply flashing. The light took up my entire field of sight, before diminishing further and further until it was just a light glow, sitting a few rows in front of me. The audience and band were frozen, staring at the glow as if they were captivated by it.

Then I realised that the glow wasn't just a ball of light. It was Ayumu.


	7. The Creeping Chaos

The room stayed still for a few seconds, until Ayumu started to rise up out of her seat and levitate in the air. There was another pause and suddenly a wave of energy burst from within the glow, blasting the seats back and throwing the entire audience into a chaotic mess. The hall erupted into screams and everyone rushed for the exits, but I was more concerned about where the others were. I managed to free myself from under a chair and saw Haruhi on the floor, staring up at Ayumu with excited eyes.

"Look, Kyon! I told you she was an alien! I just knew it! Where's Kona-"

"No, Haruhi! We have to get out of here, now!" I exclaimed, grabbing her arm and trying to pull her up. She wasn't going anywhere.

"No way, Kyon! What's wrong with you? Don't you wanna see her awesome power as much as I do?!"

There was another pulse of energy, although this time it was a more sustained force, and I noticed it was trying to pull us closer to Ayumu. That was when I saw her face.

Whatever it was, it wasn't Ayumu. The creature seemed human, but its arms and legs were stretched to a disturbing length and its head, however, was insect-like in its appearance. Behind it I could scarcely make out a pair of wings, like those you'd see on a fly, and as I stared further, hundreds of tentacles began to emerge from its back and torso. The body, I realised, looked like it was spiralling inward, the glow at its centre, and I felt as though Haruhi and I were being sucked inside...

"Wake up, idiot!"

I heard a loud thump from in front of me, and I realised that Jotaro had appeared, as if from nowhere. His body was surrounded by a purple aura, and he was struggling to hold back the tentacles of the creature from reached Haruhi and me. I shook my head, grabbed her and dived out of the way, as Jotaro let go of the tentacles and dodged as they burst forward, slamming into the floor at horrific speed. I looked around and saw Koizumi standing by Miss Asahina, holding her to stop her from being pulled into the pink glow. Still holding Haruhi, who was straining to get a look at the monster, I managed to drag myself over to them.

"Koizumi, what the Hell is happening?" I yelled. The creature was giving off a loud, horrible sound.

"Well, Ayumu...it looks like Ayumu was being used by that thing. I had no idea, I never would have thought that she was just a puppet..." Koizumi yelled back. He seemed utterly confused.

The creature turned to us again, before firing another barrage of tentacles our way. This time it was Nagato who rushed in front, somehow slicing the tentacles off without even moving. Kujo took over, and I saw some of the purple aura break from his body, form a pair of hands and grab two more barrages of tentacles. The tentacle swarm had now grown to blot out the entire theatre, and the glow was as huge as it had been the first time, and was spiralling inward rapidly. I covered Haruhi's eyes and looked away from it myself, trying as hard as I could to hold onto the floor.

"I have transferred a data file into this room that is large enough to encompass the creature's further growth." Nagato said, her voice somehow rising above the noise of the monster while still sounding emotionless. "It should not take very long to-"

And then her voice began to trail off into silence. Confused, I turned to Koizumi, who was also trying, in vain, to talk.

"Kyon..." I heard Haruhi say. Turning to her, I realised she looked as confused as I saw myself, as out-of-character as it was for her. "Wh...what's going on? What's happening to Nagato and the others...?"

"Don't ask me..." I stuttered back. As I looked, their bodies glowed with the same pink light that the monster was giving off, and soon began to fade away. I turned around in fear, to see that the monster was distorting and twisting- its whole body was being pulled into the glowing spiral, and no matter how hard I clung onto the floor, I soon felt myself and Haruhi being pulled off it.

Within seconds, we accelerated into the spiral at an intense speed, reaching the centre within seconds where the last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was an immense shining light, twice as blinding as the one before it.


	8. The Nausea of Haruhi Suzumiya

I awoke what seemed like minutes later, although I have no idea of how long I was really unconscious for. After trying to wrestle my mind back to life, I remembered that the last thing I'd seen before had been a bird's-eye view of the city. As I lay there, for a moment I thought that this was impossible- how could I have been teleported directly above the city, and survived the drop down?

That's when I remembered what Koizumi had told me about "closed space".

I dragged my eyes open and looked around. It was the city we lived in, alright. The only difference was that everywhere was dark and gloomy- it had been a sunny day, yet in this bizarre alternate dimension, the sky was mostly grey with only a small tint of blue. There was a weird melancholy aura around, and the streetlamps glowed with an unearthly light. Yeah, it hit all of the requirements for closed space, alright.

There was, however, one thing that confused me. Closed spaces were, according to Koizumi anyway, pocket dimensions created through Haruhi's unbalanced emotions. Whenever Haruhi got severely irritated or pissed off, the spaces would form and serve as a way for her to let out her aggression.

Then, as if on cue, I heard a moan from the ground. Looking down I saw Haruhi, sprawled out and grimacing.

"Ah...Haruhi!" I knelt down and lifted her head up with my arm, trying to...well, I guess I don't know what I was trying to do.

"Kyon..." She murmured, opening her eyes. She looked as though she was badly hurt. "Where...are we? What happened..."

"I don't know..." I replied. This was a lie, of course. I was having flashbacks to the time before, when Haruhi involuntarily trigged the creation of a new world, taking only me with her. This was when I got worried. How could Haruhi have possibly created this world, when we'd gotten here through a portal summoned by the creature from before?

"This is like before, isn't it, Kyon..." Haruhi whispered. "That world...with those giants..."

I snapped out of my daze.

"Yeah. It is. Only we're not in the school anymore." I wasn't sure how she remembered this now, when she hadn't mentioned it at any time before.

"No...we're not..."

She sat up and started to look around. Something was weird. She wasn't her usual self, that's for sure. Instead, she seemed sad and depressed, as if her emotions were being drained away.

Suddenly, I heard a loud crash, and jerked my head up to see the glistening blue body of a giant Celestial above us, its huge arm embedded in one of the buildings lining the high street.

"Haruhi...Haruhi, we have to go, now!" I yelled, grabbing her hand and trying to drag her to her feet. She didn't move.

"Kyon...I..." was all she managed. My eyes flitted between her and the Celestial, and finally I decided to grab her and haul her up onto my back. As I did, the giant tore its arm from the building and raised it again, before swinging it like a flail and smashing in half a building on the other side of the street. The debris fell like a meteor into the middle of the road, forming a small crater.

Luckily, I had already taken to my feet and was running, with the melancholy Haruhi on my back, down the street. I had no idea where I was going, but I did know that I had to get the hell out of the area and to somewhere safe. I crossed countless main streets that were blocked off by giants, and when I tried to head to my house, I saw most of the district destroyed within seconds.

Eventually, I made it to the park that I had met Asahina in so many times, found a bench and took Haruhi off of my back. She managed to sit herself down on it and simply stared forward, her eyes blank and empty. I watched her for a few seconds, and seeing no response, decided to stare up at the equally blank sky. I wondered if Asahina and Nagato were alright. I remembered that they were able to communicate briefly with me the last time Haruhi and I were trapped inside closed space, and wondered if they'd be able to do so again. I hoped Miss Asahina was alright, as she seemed the most powerless out of herself, Nagato and Koizumi. In fact, if Koizumi was anywhere, he should have been-

That was when I hear my phone beeping. A message from Koizumi.

"Hey. Something went horribly wrong. Can't figure out what but the other Espers are here with me. We're trying to destroy the Celestials."

"I wish you'd have come earlier. There's something going on with Haruhi, it's like she's all emotionless. What should I do?" This was my reply. I had to wait a few minutes for another reply.

"Keep calm. Make your way back into the city. Do you remember where you came in? Head there."

I couldn't believe he was actually telling us to go into the beehive of giants that we had spent so long escaping from. I hadn't caught my breath yet.

"Kyon...who was that..." Haruhi said. I jerked my head up, to see her staring at me, the blank look still on her face. I was surprised to hear her speak, but relieved that she wasn't totally comatose.

"Koizumi. Listen, Haruhi...we need to go back into the city centre. Can you walk?" I said, not expecting a yes.

"I think so..." She replied. With that, she stood up and extended a hand down to me. I sat staring at her in confusion for a moment, then shook myself out of it and took the hand. She nodded, and we started off running back the way we came.

The trip was surprisingly uneventful, but the noise was still at a deafening volume, and I imagined that unless the ESPers picked up the pace, the entire city would be destroyed by the Celestials. I started wondering what would happen if the Celestials ran out of things to smash, then decided it wasn't a soothing thought and cast it out of my head.

We managed to make it into the city without any Celestial sightings, but as we were making our way through the streets and entered the main square, I heard my phone beeping. It was a message from Koizumi. Two words.

"Look up."

I did so, only to see the giant blue arm of a Celestial casting a shadow over us. I was ready to grab Haruhi and make a desperate dive out of the way, but a stream of light ripped through the arm just in time, causing it to fall harmlessly to the ground a short distance away.

"You took your time..." I muttered, as the glowing bubble containing Koizumi floated in front of our eyes and landed. The bubble disappeared, and Koizumi walked out.

"Sorry about that." He said, the annoying grin still on his face. "It took us a while to get organised and so on, we really weren't expecting something like this to happen so we hadn't prepared."

"Weren't you supposed to always be prepared for these kind of scenarios? Your ESPer society or whatever?" I replied. A second later, I saw what was left of the Celestial fall to pieces as several more light streams ripped through it.

"We weren't ready for Ayumu-or rather, the creature disguised as her- to attack in the way it did. We're fine with the closed space that Haruhi creates, but this...there's something else lurking in this particular space. It hasn't shown itself yet, but we know it's here." Koizumi explained, looking around him in case of any more giant sightings. One poked its head around the side of a building, but was quickly set upon by ESPers, who ripped it to pieces.

"Yeah, we also think that this closed space was actually co-created. It's a product of the minds of Ayumu and Haruhi."

"So Ayumu can created closed sp-" I began, then saw the flaw. "Wait, Ayumu...don't you mean that creature's mind?"

"No, I mean Ayumu's mind. That creature just used an image of her body to disguise as her- her mind is being held prisoner somewhere here, and we're pretty sure it's being manipulated somehow..." He suddenly stopped, as if listening for something, then continued at a faster pace." Kyon, listen, because I'll have to go soon, and I can't spare any more time texting you or talking to you. The agency I work for thinks that the creatures, the beings behind this whole thing, exist far beyond our perception. Beyond the perception of any being in this universe, or, well...what used to be the universe. All that exists is this closed space now."

"What? The universe is..." I stuttered.

"It's complicated. I'll just leave you with this- beware of the spiral. Any spirals you see, you stay away from them, and don't look at them. Make sure you don't look at them, ever. You need to get Haruhi somewhere safe, she's in no state to do anything right now." He began to float into the air, shrouded in his purple bubble.

"Right...wait, you know what's wrong with her?" I said. Haruhi had stayed blank throughout the entire encounter, staring into space.

"We have an idea, but...I can't spare any more time. My colleagues need me- Celestials are appearing all over the place. Head down this street just ahead- I'm pretty sure there's a spot there that's safe. We're going to keep trying to contact Nagato- we think that if this closed space was co-created, there's a chance she may have managed to protect herself. After all, it's not like Haruhi had all the say in who crossed over to this universe or not."

And with that, he said goodbye to us, and shot off into the sky, joining with several other streams of light that I saw passing overhead. The horrible feeling in my stomach was getting worse and worse- the end of the universe had worried me enough, but this could mean the end of everything- even reality. Ugh, it makes my head spin even looking back.

So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I grabbed Haruhi's hand and began to run down the street that Koizumi had pointed at, praying for no more Celestials to appear until we reached the safe spot that he'd spoken about. As I ran, I thought about the last time it had been just Haruhi and I in a closed space. Back then, we had gotten home by...well, I'd managed to convince Haruhi that the old world really wasn't that bad after all, but I didn't think that tactic would work in a universe created by two people rather than one, especially with Haruhi the way she was. The only hope I had now, unless I could somehow get Haruhi back to her normal, annoying self, was Koizumi and the agency.

I continued down the street, but as I went further, I saw that it was getting brighter. Far from the dark, grey dullness of the sky, the light ahead was almost blinding. It looked like I was walking straight into a lamp powered by every power plant on Earth. This confused me even more, because I knew that there was no light at all like that when I had woken up in the street earlier, not even a tiny glimpse. Holding Haruhi's hand tighter (As much as I hate to admit it), I walked forward, before finding myself at the edge of a huge crater. As my eyes slowly became used to the light, I looked into it, and saw the strangest sight of my life.

It was a globe, as tall as one of the buildings, covered entirely in spirals.


	9. A Republic of Spirals

By this point, I was sure I was dreaming, or having a really bad hallucination, or something like that. Haruhi and I were walking into what looked like a giant city of spirals- well, what looked like a city. All around us were enormous drill-like buildings stretching up into the sky, some bigger than the others, and some that had drills growing off of drills, like some weird tree. And of course, the giant globe in the centre.

I'm pretty sure Freud said that dreams are some sort of gateway into the subconscious, that they reveal your innermost thoughts and desires. Well, Freud, if you're hearing me somehow, I'd love to hear what you have to say about my subconscious.

Well, we had nowhere else to go, so I just decided to grit my teeth and take a look at what the giant globe looked like up-close. Grasping the still-non-responsive Haruhi's hand, I started to make my way down the side of the crater and into the centre. It was then that the spirals started to shine, an almost alien glow coming over them. Well, I say almost alien. As if a bunch of giant, natural-looking spiral structures could be earthly in any way.

The glow radiated all around, and I suddenly began to notice the odd stone patterns that made up the ground. The patterns had started off being wavy and cylindrical, like snakes, but now I noticed that they were starting to thin out, and there were points where they crossed over and over, like a double helix.

A second later, I saw the eye staring up from beneath the lines.

I shuddered when I saw it, which is probably the appropriate reaction to a blank, lifeless, grey stone eye glaring up from the ground. My noticing this then led me to notice several other eyes, then the faces they were attached to, all staring up from beneath my feet. I have to admit that I panicked a little, shuffling my feet so I wasn't standing on any, and dragging Haruhi around so that she wasn't, either. I soon calmed down and realised that they were made of stone and therefore unable to move, or feel anything.

My first thoughts were that the faces had been built by whatever built the spirals, but then I noted the creases and wrinkles in every face, the perfect proportions, the natural-looking features, and I realised that they couldn't possibly have been sculpted, unless one of the Celestials was some kind of Michelangelo. The faces were just staring, staring, staring...and it took me a minute before I could realise what they were staring at- the giant globe in the centre. The faces just lay on the ground, lit up every time the globe glowed. It was as if they were completely transfixed by it.

As I walked further down towards the centre of the crater with Haruhi, I realised that the faces were getting greyer and greyer, more and more like rock and stone. On the outer edges, they had been smoother and more natural in appearance, but towards the centre they were rougher and harder, as if the spirals had drained all of the life from them, leaving a bunch of what were basically rocks that looked like a total amateur had sculpted them.

As we came to the centre of the crater, I'm embarrassed to admit that I began clinging to Haruhi's hand with a tighter grip. I was just starting to realise it, but whenever we got into a totally alien situation, it was her enthusiasm and wonder that provided the foil I needed for my calm and laid-back nature. With that gone, I...almost had no one to panic for me, if that makes any sense.

I guess Haruhi's condition did have the one upside- she wasn't dragging me along with her to explore this new world, as she'd tried to do when it was just us two locked in Closed Space. Of course, back then we got home safely in the end, but had she been in that mood here...I'm not so sure. Anyway, enough of this sentimentality.

Eventually, we had come to the centre of the crater and were standing directly under the globe. I noticed that it wasn't just a giant sphere balancing upright on the floor, but it was being supported by several thick vines that crossed over each other, forming a tree-trunk pattern. Things were just getting weirder and weirder. I could see structures around me that were like conventional shapes, yet I could also see those that spiralled (of course) into shapes I'd never seen before, into things that looked like trees and bushes...

"You...it's been a while...since I saw people..."

I jumped. Well, I was standing in the middle of a city of spirals, looking around cautiously in case of any surprise attacks or other irrational things like that. I think I had the right to be a little on-edge.

The voice came from the left of where we were standing. Slowly, I moved my head and saw a young girl- well, a girl around our age- leaning upright on the wall, her arms wrapped around what looked like a stone statue of a boy with glasses. A second later, I noticed that her arms were indeed wrapped around him- they had stretched to an impossible length and were entwined with his own, stone, arms.

"You seem pretty shocked...I guess that's normal, though." The girl said, smiling slightly. It was a sad smile, and I started to feel a little awkward.

"Well, yeah, I mean...it's a long story. But I never expected to see another person in here along with us two." I intentionally excluded Koizumi from the label of "person". "How did you get here? Do you know Haruhi?"

I indicated to Haruhi, who was beginning to look around a little. At least she was starting to get a little bit of life back. The girl looked at her, then shook her head. It seemed as though it was hurting her neck to turn to us, so I moved in front of her.

"No, I don't know her...and as for how I got here, it's a long story. Well, maybe not so long, but...a disturbing one. I think we've got enough time for me to tell it, if you'd care to hear it."

I was a little hesitant to trust her, but I then remembered that this was where Koizumi had told us to go, so we had nothing better to do. Then again, Koizumi hadn't mentioned the mass influx of spirals.

Her story was truly bizarre and, as she had said, disturbing. She gave her name as being Kirie Goshima, and apparently she used to live in a town called "Kurouzu-cho", which became possessed by- you've probably guessed it- the spiral. She said that she was intentionally leaving out the more gruesome elements, but she mentioned something about her friend's hair suddenly growing in spiral patterns (followed by her own), and described the transformations of people in snails, with giant spiral shells on their backs.

Over time, she explained, the people of the town were slowly killed off or driven insane by the curse of the spiral. Escape was impossible, due to every road leading out of the town spiralling back in, and eventually her and her boyfriend (Who she introduced as "Shuichi", the guy she was locked in an embrace with) made their way into the centre of the town and followed a spiral staircase down to a colossal city of spirals- the very one we were standing in.

"Shuichi...he was attacked by someone on the staircase and fell all the way down here. You've seen the ground, haven't you? Every person there here is a person swallowed by the spiral. They just lie here, frozen, staring at that thing. Captivated." She said. Suddenly, something occurred to me.

"Miss Goshima...wait. If you took a staircase under your town to get to this city of spirals...then why are they here now, in a pocket dimension co-created by this girl here?" I nodded to Haruhi. Kirie paused for a moment and stared down at the ground. A few seconds later, she turned back to me, the sad smile back on her face.

"Then she was the co-creator of this world..." She nodded, then carried on. "This...this city...it wasn't underneath the town at all. It was all around it. We just entered...I guess you could call it a gateway. The spiral is enigmatic, it captivates the souls of people...that's why they used it..."

"Who?"

She was reluctant to answer this. Nonetheless, I persevered, and she eventually broke her silence.

"The Outer Ones."


	10. SoftBoiled Wonderland

I had never been struck with such a chill of fear as when I heard those words. I didn't even know what they meant yet, but I knew it wasn't going to be good.

"Mmhmm...you don't know them, of course..." She took a breath, before continuing. "I don't know exactly what they are...but from what I've heard whispered over the years I've been here, they're some sort of Gods...they live outside of our universe...well, universes. They brought the spirals to Kurouzu-cho, I'm sure of it. I can hear them whispering things, sometimes...it's like they're all around here. They used the spiral to invade Kurouzu, to drive my family, friends, and everyone in the town insane..."

I could see her biting her lower lip. I wanted to tell her to stop but I had to know what was really happening, and I had the feeling she wanted to tell me.

"I'm sorry...I haven't seen a living human in so long..."

"Don't worry, Miss Goshima." I said, laying my free hand on her shoulder in support. Haruhi was still looking around inquisitively.

"Th...thank you..." She composed herself slightly. "The Outer Ones...Outer Gods...whatever. They feed on chaos and horror. Kurouzu...it was a banquet for them. I think they come from space...it all began with the appearance of a cluster of spiral galaxies in space. Something to anchor themselves in my universe. Did that appear in your universe, too?"

My thoughts went back to the day I had heard of the astronomy club's discovery of the new planet. Yuggoth. I nodded, slowly. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought it would come out of my chest.

"Well..." Kirie nodded back. "Just think yourself lucky you didn't go through the same chaos as me...but I can't think why they wouldn't use the spirals to cause chaos in your universe, too..."

"Well, Miss Goshima..." I began, "Before my universe collapsed, I was talking with some people who had an idea of what was going on. Did you hear anything in those whispers about universe-fusion?"

She thought for a moment, then the sad smile returned.

"So...it really is happening..." She murmured.

"Huh? Happening? What do you mean?" I exclaimed. Hearing it described as a "happening" didn't do very good things for my heart. Not to sound like an old man or anything.

"There was universe fusion mentioned...the Eternal Spiral..." She sighed. It was a sigh of hopelessness, which made me even more worried.

"They wanted to use the spiral to encompass everything. Time, space, universes...the entire Macrocosm- that is, collection of universes in which we exist. I think they're trying to create-"

She was cut off by a loud blast from above. My head jerked up, and I saw a piece of the globe fly into the far side of the crater. I heard the loud cry of one of the Celestials, and straight away I knew what was going on- the Celestials had run out of streets to destroy and, seeing the glowing beacon of spirals, had decided to destroy that. I was wondering where the hell Koizumi was, and why he and his ESPer friends hadn't wiped them all out- they'd had plenty of time to do so.

Grabbing Haruhi's hand tighter, I turned back to Kirie.

"Kirie...we have to go...I have to get you out of there-"

"No."

Just one word. She was staring defiantly at me.

"Don't be stupid, I've got to get you out, the whole thing's going to collapse-"

"I said no. Look..." She turned away for a moment, then looked back. "I've been here for...years. Possibly hundreds of years. I've just been locked in this embrace with Shuichi for years and years, staring at the spiral to stop myself going insane..."

I was dumbfounded. Hundreds of years, unable to move...

"Save yourself! Any more life you can get for yourself...if that girl co-created this universe, then she can take it apart...all they've done is drained her of emotion- she should still be able to stop them-"

She was interrupted by another blast, this time coming from directly above us. I dived out from beneath the sphere, shielding Haruhi with my body as a chunk of the huge structure fell down, smashing into the ground where we had been standing. Now I could see into the sphere itsef- its interior was covered in hundreds of multicoloured spirals, rotating and giving off a mystifying aura, like a psychedelic police siren.

"Go! Go!" I heard Kirie yell, before the entire sphere collapsed. I froze for a moment, cursing the fact that I couldn't save her, when the Celestial responsible for its destruction rose up behind it. It gave off its bizarre roar, and then swung its arm at one of the spiral towers, shattering it into pieces. The pieces smashed against the ground, and I began to hear a rumbling sound, which sounded disturbingly like pieces of rock breaking away from something.

The Celestial took another step towards us, stepping into the ruins of the sphere...and falling straight through them. There was a loud boom as the ground collapsed under the giant's feet, falling into oblivion and carrying the celestial with it. Then, I saw the source of the crumbling, breaking sound- the crater was collapsing, disintegrating into nothing. Well, not nothing exactly. Beneath the ground I could see a sea of multicoloured spirals, spinning and radiating...

I shook myself out of my momentary daze, pulled Haruhi to her feet and began to ran up the side of the crater, as fast as my legs would carry me. This wasn't very fast, when you consider all of the stone faces on the ground there were to trip over. Eventually I managed to drag myself and Haruhi out of the crater and into the street, just in time to turn back and see the entire crater collapse into the spiral sea below. And I never thought I'd have to say a sentence like that.

Then, before I could take a single breath, the blue foot of another Celestial smashed down beside us. Without even stopping to think, I grabbed Haruhi's hand again and started to run down the street. The buildings were no longer just ruins but piles of rubble, and the street itself had cracks running all the way through it, as if there had been an earthquake strong enough to rip the very earth in half. Looking ahead, I could see the entrance to the highway- a bit of a weird sight, seeing as I knew I didn't go down the highway to get to the crater.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud electric screech from behind me, and felt a powerful force hit me in the back. In the second or two before I hit the ground, I thought the Celestial had turned on us after running out of things for it to mindlessly smash, but then I realised that if it truly had been the Celestial that hit us, we'd have probably gone straight through the ground and into the spiral sea that I assumed was everywhere beneath us.

Rolling over, I was relieved to see a huge hole in the centre of the Celestial, and even more relieved to see Koizumi hovering down to the ground, surrounded by his glowing bubble. By relieved, of course, I mean "glad he was alive", because there was no way he was getting out of forcing me to be Suzumiya's babysitter without giving me some compensation. And by that in turn, I mean fronting the bill for every SOS Brigade cafe outing over the next year. The smile he had on his face as he landed was even more infuriating.

"Ah, I see you and Miss Suzumiya made it out of there safely. I was worried about you." He said, in his laid-back tone. The Celestial roared for the last time, before shattering, like glass.

"You are so paying for that." I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm glad we're all safe, but really. Sending us to a massive spiral...city, plaza, whatever? What the hell were you thinking?"

"Well, I do apologise. I couldn't send you anywhere else, because there were Celestials all over."

"Ugh. Alright, alright..." Then a thought suddenly hit me. "That girl...I wonder what happened to her..."

"Girl?" Koizumi replied.

"Yeah, there was this girl down there, trapped underneath that huge spiral. Her name was Kirie, and she said something about "Outer Ones" and the spirals..."

"Oh, yes. Kirie Goshima." Koizumi said, nodding. This was utterly confusing.

"Wait, how...how do you know her?" I asked, bewildered. I got a thoroughly enigmatic response.

"Hmm, yes...the only one to survive the massacre at Kurouzu-cho...well, I say massacre. It wasn't, really. It was a curse."

At this point, Koizumi turned around and stared at the hole left by the crater. Suddenly, there was another loud rumble, and I saw the ruined buildings in the distance begin to collapse into the ground. A second later, the ground on the other side of the crater crumbled and began to break away, making the hole even wider. Koizumi didn't seem bothered by this.

"The curse that descended upon those of Kurouzu-cho...the hideous plan concocted by the Outer Gods, those that rule their universe at the court of the daemon sultan Azathoth, whose horrific mannerisms defy perception..."

His voice had changed. I could still hear Koizumi's normal voice in his speech(Which was how I could decipher what he was saying), but along with it there spoke a deeper, evil-sounding being, talking in a language I had never heard before.

"They would stretch out to other universes, other macrocosms...force everything into a stream of madness and chaos...messily merge the universes together...crush an entire macrocosm into a spiral of disorder and destruction...to feed...to feed..."

He then turned his head, and I was struck with horror. It wasn't Koizumi. If it WAS Koizumi, then he'd suddenly dyed his skin jet-black and adopted a pair of bright red contact lenses, and I'm sure that was impossible. I grabbed Haruhi's hand and slowly began to back away. It was when he turned around fully that I ran.


	11. The Spirals Feed

The road was now beginning to collapse- I could see that now. The cracks had grown wider and, although nothing was falling apart just yet, I somehow knew that what I had seen happening on the other side of the giant hole would happen on this side, too- I was certain the entirety of the Closed Space would soon fall into the ocean of spirals spinning below us. And, even more worryingly, everything was starting to come together- the fusion of universes, the Eternal Spiral, the Outer Gods wanting to feed on disorder...everything we had been theorising about was suddenly coming true. The end of the universe...as far as I knew, that could have already happened. Nagato, Asahina, Kujo, Fran, the real Koizumi...Haruhi and I were the only ones left.

And what of Ayumu? Was the real Ayumu truly that terrifying monster that had attacked us in the theatre? Or was she another victim of the spirals? What if her original home was in Kurouzu-cho? What if she had been possessed by the spirals?

I was shaken out of my thoughts by a sudden quake, and I ended up tripping over one of the a part of the road that had been forced out of place. Checking to see if Haruhi was safe, I happened to gaze up into the sky...to see spirals, everywhere. The sky was no longer its former colours of...well, mostly grey. It was now a psychedelic bright yellow, with what looked like red clouds spiralling into nothingness. No matter now much I think about it, all I can see is a big bowl of vanilla ice cream, with raspberry swirls. Cataclysmic ice cream, maybe.

I picked myself up and tried to run, but soon found that the street had turned into what was basically a giant rocky pathway. Things had gotten more precarious. I made my way forward, staring at the highway ahead, which seemed oddly unaffected by the earthquake. Slowly I picked my way over each piece of street, pulling Haruhi with me. If I had dropped her into the spiral ocean, that was it. My last hope lay in her somehow managing to get us out of this, somehow. I guess if she was responsive I'd have dangled her a bit, maybe, but I digress.

As we worked our way further and further, the street seemed as though it was turning back to normal. Well, I say turning back, I mean it was looking more like normal, flat street, rather than some sort of cliff face. As I looked into the sky, I could see the number of red spirals growing. There were now so many of them that I didn't bother counting, and the trails leading out of each spiral seemed to stream together, forming one giant spiral in the sky.

I looked down from this horrific sight and helped Haruhi climb back down to the normal, flat street. As soon as her feet hit the ground, I set off running again. My target was the highway...but I saw that the highway was actually pointing up into the air. So now where was I supposed to go? Definitely not back, and I couldn't take one of the side streets in case I got cornered...well, I decided that my best bet was to just keep running and make my stand at the end of the highway. As if on cue, the rumbling returned, and I looked behind me to see the broken street I had just scaled fall into the spirals.

The being that had been Koizumi was walking just in front of it.

Throwing all doubt to the wind, I ran. Oddly enough, I felt Haruhi's grip on my hand loosen, and as I looked to the side I could see her running aside me, rather than trailing behind slightly as she had been doing before. I kind of got my hopes up that she had returned to normal (As out-of-character I might sound) but no such luck. As we ran, I could hear the street continuing to collapse behind us, and the ruins of the buildings around us seemed to fuse together, rising into giant spiral towers such as those I'd seen around the giant spiral globe. The spirals in the sky grew more and more abundant in number, and the giant spiral began to glow, giving off a bizarre light that illuminated what remained of the Closed Space.

Stumbling and weak, we eventually reached the highway, leaping on before the street collapsed into the spirals below. I didn't look back to see if the Koizumi-thing had made it. Taking Haruhi by the hand again, I started to run up to the end of the highway...and, as if to top off the series of weird and nonsensical events, I saw it begin to slim down. Well, let me put it this way. If you've ever seen a highway lead off into the distance, that's what it looked like.

We caught up to the end of the strip of road, only to find that it was somehow extending further. Weirder still, it also seemed to be extending...upwards. Maybe I'm wording this badly. To put it simply, what looked like a giant, spiralling staircase was unfolding in front of us.

And it wasn't going slowly. The staircase was rapidly extending, stretching higher and higher. With no other choice, I ran onto it, pulling Haruhi behind me, and started to climb. I only looked behind me once, to see the Koizumi-being walking towards the bottom of the stairs. Disturbingly (Although probably not surprisingly), I could see no other buildings, streets, anything remnant of the closed space left. There was only a sea of spirals below, and a glowing sky of spirals above.

And then we reached the end.

Author's note: Well, this is the first time I've actually talked in this. I want to keep this brief, really, just to address a couple of things.

For one, I apologise for Kyon's OOC moments. I've tried my best to write in his frame of mind, but because of my writing habits (ie. Writing a load of chapters all at once) I realise that this can waver and sometimes erode away completely. So sorry about that. The story itself is almost finished, and if there's enough demand for it I'll go over and edit it, add in parts, take parts away etc.

And the final thing is; if you've stuck with this story thus far, or if you're reading it at all- thanks a lot.


	12. The End of the World

The staircase hadn't stretched that far upwards, maybe only twenty feet or so, but it suddenly ended. No warning, nothing. End of the line. If you'll let me say something so clichéd.

"It took so long to convince those cosmic fools of this scheme..." The distorted voice spoke up from below. "I thrive on chaos and disorder, they thrive on destruction, death, decay..."

Hearing this, my heart started racing. Time was almost up. I didn't even want to think about what would happen if he caught up to us. I turned to Haruhi, who had collapsed on the stairs, and began to shake her like a madman.

"Dammit Haruhi, wake up, wake up!" I yelled. Nothing. Her face still blank.

"You must have heard it all from Kirie Goshima. It all began with the spiral, descending out of space, out of the galaxies, out of the dimensional tear that allowed us access into your Macrocosm. It rooted itself beneath the spot that would soon become the town of Kurouzu-cho, and began to grow, grow into an entire city, a city of chaotic, iridescent, glowing spirals. And over time, the town grew above the city of spirals, and the spirals seeped up into the town, becoming part of it, possessing it..."

It was still talking. I kept shaking Haruhi, but she just wouldn't wake up. Looking down, I could see the Koizumi-thing walking slowly up the stairs, with the stairs themselves collapsing as it ascended.

"This pleased my masters, the Outer Gods. But no, this was not the end. After driving all but one resident of the town into insanity and death, we decided to preserve her, keep her as an anchor in your Macrocosm. The Macrocosm of Ani'hmey, as the Outer Gods pronounce it..."

At this point I had nearly reached the end of my patience and, I hate to say it, I was losing my sanity a little bit. I lost control and yelled,

"Macrocosm? What the hell do you mean? Stop rambling and get to the damn point!"

It laughed. A horrible sound.

"You...yes, we have observed you. So close to the God of this Macrocosm, Mr John Smith...or, Kyon, as you are affectionately known. You must have noticed some changes recently...changes in your classmates, changes in your atmosphere."

"Yeah. Universe fusion. I get it." I glanced over at Haruhi, and saw that she was still unresponsive. Well, not totally. I noticed her fingers moving, her fists slowly opening and closing.

"Hah! You get it? You lesser beings and your arrogance. I have seen your conversations with your petty little band, the "SOS Brigade." You all thought you had understood, Ayumu was your target and you had to get rid of her to save the universe. Hah, how simple it would have been! No, the being you suspected you knew, the one you would have called Ayumu has been trapped in the gap between dimensions for the entirety of this charade. No, your target was beyond your reach this entire time."

By now it had reached the curve of the stairwell leading around to where we sat. The end. Ominous doesn't begin to describe it.

"As soon as we tore through into Goshima's universe and established her as our anchor, trapped in time and space, we extended our grasp to other universes in your Macrocosm- your collection of universes, in simple terms- and we began to blend them together, merging them, one into another...we Outer Gods were locked outside of the Universe we had created, yet we found it so very simply to meddle in the affairs of your Universes. Eventually the plan was taking form- the plan to merge every universe in your Macrocosm into one continuous, everlasting spiral of destruction and chaos."

Haruhi was now looking around, blankly, while settling her hands in her lap. This was strange, but a good sign. I felt hopeful- if I could keep him talking, maybe she would come back.

"And you call us arrogant?" was all I could think of. Weak, I know.

"Don't make me laugh again." The Koizumi-being had made its way to the bottom of our flight of stairs and stopped. "Amidst all of our chaos, all of our universe-fusion and elimination, there was always one universe we could not touch. I will not make a fool of myself by asking you which one. It was your universe. The universe of this...Haruhi Suzumiya. It was blocking us, preventing us from proceeding further. So many universes had been conglomerated, crushed into our spiral, but yours...a presence from within your universe kept them regenerating...the God of the Macrocosm..."

It twitched a little. I figured this to be in disgust.

"In our original universe, there existed humans we called Dreamers, those who would scour the plains of the Dreamland to our ancestral heights in the region of Kadath, and attempt to communicate with the Outer Gods. In the land known to humans as "reality," there were numerous cults devoted to us, avatars brought to life...we were invocated, pulled into these forms, and we spread madness unto humanity. We could touch the world, find ways into the human universe outside of our inter-dimensional bondage...and these gave us ideas. We would find a Dreamer, wandering whimsically through your Macrocosm's dream realms, and we would snatch their mind away and imprison it within our insane, incomprehensible realms. In its place we would leave a construct of our own, one that emulated the subject, but was in fact a key...a Silver Key to our realm of spirals and madness, and we would unleash it upon your universe."

"Ayumu..." I mumbled, without even thinking about it. A sick smile stretched across the being's face.

"Yes. At least that resonates with you. If Goshima was the anchor holding us in your Macrocosm, Ayumu would be the key to entering the realm of God...or "Haruhi" as you know it. Things were, of course, made a lot easier by the fact that God herself pulled Ayumu into your universe. I've seen you all talking about the many-worlds theory, so you know the details- A timeline splits, and a new universe is created for every action. This was a stray thought, a single creeping moment in the corner of God's mind: maybe she would find the aliens and oddities that she so desired if she were visited by one from another universe. The chance that this timeline could be created was so small, so miniscule...but we capitalised on it. Planting Ayumu in, we had our anchor. Other anchors appeared- the alien world Yuggoth, spotted in the sky by a high school astronomy club, the creature Y'golonac, the defiler, the one that lurks behind walls..."

It gave a disturbing, unpleasant laugh and continued.

"The barrier subconsciously built by God around your universe was shattered and we instantly began the fusion. Universe upon universe upon universe, all merged together...Every universe created through the actions of every individual in your Macrocosm, all fused into one, all for the sole purpose of destroying God, and removing the final obstacle in our path to the Eternal Spiral of universes..."

"You mean...all of this...it was to destroy Haruhi?" I murmured, half-paying attention to the cosmic babble of the being and half watching Haruhi as the life slowly returned to her eyes.

"Of course. No matter how many universes we destroyed, new ones would sprout from the rubble of the old every time. Cosmic matter regurgitated, bringing the universes to life, destroying the Eternal Spiral when it was merely a glimpse, a tiny sprout..."

It then began to walk, incredibly slowly, up the stairs. Nothing I've ever seen was as creepy as that walk. The glowing spirals above didn't help my nausea.

"We realised that if there were a thousand alternate universes, it didn't matter what we destroyed- they would never stay permanently ruined because your God kept on bringing them back to life...and we could never destroy her because she would still be alive in an alternate universe. So, we ceased our maniacal attempts to destroy her and instead, brought your universe to the centre of our Eternal Spiral, with the other universes circling around it, all the way down...that would be "fate." God would have nowhere to run to if every universe led to the same place- destruction."

Haruhi seemed to be almost alert now. Her eyes were slightly brighter and she was moving around a lot more. I was starting to worry that she might not wake up in time. The being was getting closer...

"And so it all ended here. When the key within Ayumu was awakened, when that horrific beast emerged, transformed from the disguise it had held for that short duration, the gate to our dimension was torn open. All but you and God- Haruhi- were sucked into a void, their minds and bodies trapped in the Eternal Spiral of universes. Of course, we did not expect God to go without a fight- she had to build a final stronghold, a physical dimension, and infest it with her Celestial giants...hah hah hah! And all of this, right at the end, was done entirely subconsciously! Entirely to protect you, Kyon, even if it meant sacrificing her very will to the spirals, even if it meant becoming an emotionless, blank shell of a being..."

Far from it. The girl this thing had been complaining about was slowly beginning to return to life. I saw her eyes blink, her mouth move...thankfully, he didn't. I just needed to buy a little more time. My eye drifted slightly into the sky, and I could see the giant spiral still rotating, yet it seemed like it was slowing down...

"So this is it, huh? This is where our "Macrocosm" ends? You destroy Haruhi and turn everything into chaos?" I said, trying as best I could to sound hopeless. It smiled its horrible smile again.

"Of course. It would seem that even God's luck runs out in the end. With all of the alternate universes merged into one...this is the end for both of you. This is fate. And I can finally stop talking in this wretched human language..."

The being was now standing directly in front of us, its right arm raised. As it spoke its last words, I could see it begin to melt and transform...

"Kyon? Kyon? Where are we?! Don't tell me I missed the whole thing with that monster! The one with all the tentacles and the spirals?!"

I saw a flicker of despair on the creature's face. Straight away, it stopped mid-transformation and "snapped back" to its Koizumi-esque form. The girl lying comatose next to me had spoken, all right. I'm guessing this wasn't the flawless victory he was looking for. The spiral in the sky had now not only stopped rotating, but had begun to rotate in the opposite direction.

"Whoa! What's this, Kyon?! Is this thing an alien? No, wait...it's just Koizumi dyed jet-black! And who're you tryin' to fool with these stupid spiral backgrounds, anyway?!" Haruhi ranted. I had never been happier to hear it.

"No, no...this is..." The being stuttered, before jerking its head around to stare at the sky itself. It could see the spiral speeding up its flow, as if it was reversing everything, spitting everything back out like a malfunctioning blender.

"You! Wretched human filth! You...you would undo the machinations of the Outer Gods this way...we beings, that exist for destruction, for madness..." It started clutching its head, and it was at this point that it lost the form of Koizumi, instead melting and morphing into disturbing humanoid forms, presumably in an attempt to keep its grip on reality. Or something like that. Come on, expecting me to understand the mindset of some universe-hopping shape shifter is a long shot, to say the least.

"Kyon, I don't know what you tried to do with all of these trippy hallucinations, but I've had enough!" Haruhi yelled. "Where the hell did that alien go?! It was interesting!"

"No...she should have...lost her mind...to the spirals..." In the middle of Haruhi's rant, I looked at the being and saw that its form was, horrifyingly, being contorted to the weirdest shape I have ever seen. It was like it was being crushed and squeezed all over its body and, as the spiral in the sky sped up further and further, the creature became- and I can't believe I'm saying this- noodle-esque in appearance. I was thankful Haruhi was too busy ranting at me to turn around and look at it, if only because I wanted to keep her away from the nightmares I was going to have about it. It turned to me and reached for Haruhi with one of its long arms.

"We…" It spluttered, "We were the ones…engineered the death-stench…told the dark fortunes at the crossing…cursed the valley of mirrors…formed the holes in…Ami…gara…" It collapsed forward onto the stairs, and I was happy I didn't have to look at its grotesque face anymore. Haruhi turned round, but I quickly stood up and went in front of her, blocking the thing from sight. I did not want another explosion of Haruhi-emotion right now, thank you.

"Yeah, well, I'd say it was pretty stupid of you to let God in here without making sure she'd do no harm." I said, smirking a little. I was enjoying this, although this was probably more from relief than from sadistic joy. With that, I lightly kicked the remains of the thing into the sea of spirals below, watching it fall and fade from view.

"Kyon? Who were you talking to? Where's Koizumi? And…where are we?! I've asked you this, Kyon! Where are we?!" The princess demanded. I just gave a shrug and slumped back down on the stairs, trying to catch my breath and rearrange my thoughts after the entire episode. I didn't really expect Haruhi to accept my noncommittal shrug as an appropriate answer, so she continued to rant at me. Don't ask me what she said- I just blocked it all out. I was staring at the giant spiral in the sky, which was slowing down as if it were grinding to a halt.

As a matter of fact, when I looked into the spiral sea below, my suspicions were confirmed- all of the spirals were beginning to grind to a halt. I suppose I should have expected this, seeing as Haruhi was up and running again, but if I've learned one thing in all of my time with Haruhi, it's "assume nothing." Something's always bound to jump out of nowhere and surprise you.


	13. Drifting Through Nothing

As the spirals slowed down further and further, they stopped being spirals and instead started deforming into some kind of eerie wave shape. It reminded me a little of a heart monitor, but I guess you can compare it more to how you see heatwaves on cheap American cop shows. The atmosphere was certainly more calming now (If you ignored Haruhi) and, in some ways, more mysterious. Maybe it was all the silence around, maybe the fact that there was nothing to see except blue sky and odd wave-shapes…eh, I don't know.

The relief turned suddenly to concern, and I began to wonder how we would get back to our universe- that is, if there was still a universe to get back to. If the whole thing had ended with the death of that Koizumi-creature, then…I guess I'd been playing too many video games, but I thought that the entire universe would simply…come back. Just reappear, maybe. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.

I'm not sure how long we waited there. Haruhi fell asleep eventually, frustratingly deciding to use my leg as a pillow, and leaving me to stare into the wave pattern in the sky, wondering what it was the result of. If the waves were the remains of the spirals…then did that mean the Great Old Ones were still around? I suppose it was only the ambassador that was killed…these were the thoughts going through my head.

And then I heard the odd sound.

I'm not quite sure how to recollect it. At the start, it sounded as though it was a Theremin or some sort of synthesiser from a Pink Floyd album. A sort of…high-pitched, alien sound. Honestly, at this point I was fully prepared to be abducted by a UFO, considering the rest of the weird crap that had happened. I'd probably have welcomed it- at least it was a way out of this mess…although, what did happen was somewhat more pleasing.

The waves in the sky started to move faster and faster- let's compare it to the ocean becoming more and more fierce. As they sped up, I found myself having to stare at the piece of rock we were floating on to stop myself from getting sick. The sound came again, this time at a slightly lower pitch. I opened my eyes a little, to find that the speed of the waves had increased many tens of times over, now looking less like a calming ocean than a psychedelic rock video.

The sound, again. Once again, lower. I felt Haruhi stir and hoped beyond anything that she wouldn't wake up. I would hate to imagine the massive cataclysms that would come from her seeing what I was seeing, after all. Sadly, it looked as though her waking up would be unavoidable, and all I could do was wait and see how she reacted. By this point, the waves were pooling together, the…lines, I suppose you'd call them, were overlapping, twisting…

The mass of waves was beginning to remind me of a giant spiral.

Oh yes, and Haruhi awoke upon the fourth sound. I'm not sure which gave me the worse feeling.

"Kyon…are we…?" She murmured, sleepily. A dazed Haruhi was a placid Haruhi, I guess.

"We're still here." I replied. The hopelessness finally hit me at this point. The waves were still merging into their giant spiral, the sounds were decreasing in tone and increasing in duration…I began to feel as though Haruhi would have done something by now, if she could have done so.

"Ugh, Kyon…this isn't funny anymore!" She cried, petulantly. I didn't reply, mainly because I couldn't think up any sort of witty remark, and partly because all I felt like doing was sitting back and watching events unfold as they seemed destined to, ie. not in our favour.

"Kyon…why aren't we going anywhere…what's with that giant spiral…"

More moaning from Haruhi. Looks like she'd noticed it after all.

"Wow…it's like…I can see everyone in it! Kyon, what did you do?!"

She sounded excited. Well, at least one of us was…then I realised what she'd said.

"Wait…what was that?" I blurted out, without thinking. Against my better judgement, I looked up at where she was pointing, into the spiral…and there they were. Hundreds of figures- I guess you could say souls, really, judging by how they had those opaque bodies and closed, peaceful eyes. Among them I could spot people I'd seen around school, sure, as well as celebrities, even a couple of politicians.

"Kyon, what are you looking at? Why's your mouth wide open?! Don't tell me you haven't seen this before!" she screeched, accurately. Then I saw what she was truly staring at- the centre of the spiral. As I looked, squinting my eyes…I could see Nagato. And Koizumi. Fran and Asahina…in fact, I could see everyone from our old high school.

That was when it hit me. Remembering what the fake Koizumi had said, I recalled the concept of the "spiral to destruction" or whatever the clichéd sci-fi term was. He had said that the goal of the Great Old Ones was to create a spiral that merged together every dimension, thus leading to the eternal death of Haruhi…but I had thought Haruhi had foiled this plan by- well, I guess I don't know HOW she did it yet. The fact is, the spirals that were covering the sky had begun to spin backwards and ended up reverting to waves, and yet…these waves had somehow transformed into one giant spiral, flowing in the same direction as the old ones…


	14. The Spiral's Eye

"Okay, Kyon! Now this is interesting!" Haruhi yelled, her old enthusiasm back with frightening momentum. "As your Brigade leader, I demand that you find a way to move this rock!"

"If I knew how, wouldn't I have done it by now…?" I murmured, exasperated. She was wearing me out already, and it was only five minutes since she'd woken up. The sound had stopped its random outbursts by now, and had settled into a low drone.

"I don't…hrmmm…" She grumbled. "You've been saying that for a long time now, Kyon! I thought you made this!"

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just said nothing and continued to stare up at the stream of bodies flowing into the centre of the spiral. Where did it lead…? I can't remember my Math classes exactly, but I had heard something about a golden rotation, a spiral that lasts for infinity…was this what our universe had come to? We were just stranded on a rock as the spiral went on forever…?

Yeah, I guess I was being pessimistic. The situation just seemed so hopeless that all I could do was think on the bad side. I know, I know, I should've been more optimistic seeing as I had God herself on my side.

"Kyon, if you didn't make this…then…" I could see her eyes lighting up, and straight away I got a bad feeling. "Then this means it's…it's…something interesting!"

Haruhi leapt up from the ground and started rapidly searching around the piece of debris, presumably for anything that could help propel us towards the giant swirling mass.

"Wait a minute! Let's not get too hasty about thi-"

"Oh, shut up, Kyon! When have you ever seen something like this before? Go on, tell me! When?"

I decided not to argue with this. Besides, there was probably no way she could find a way to move this thing in the first place, I thought.

And then I realised that Asahina's face was only centimetres away from my own.

In confusion and embarrassment, I pulled myself away, falling back onto the ground as I did so. I could hear Haruhi cackling on the other side of the rock.

"Kyon, what the hell are you doing? That's not really Mikuru, look!"

And with that, she marched over to where I was and mercilessly shoved her arm into Miss Asahina's torso. I have to admit, I winced a little when she did this, but as expected, Miss Asahina just continued to flow through the stream of souls that seemed to be drifting from the centre of the spiral. It looks like they really were souls, or ghosts, or something similar. Many might say that I accepted this fact far too quickly, but I refer those people to the events of the past year- or, indeed, the events of earlier on.

The next thing that came to my mind was this-

"Haruhi, how did you…how is this moving?"

"Hmmm…I don't…" she began, then paused for a moment. "Hah! It's a secret! Brigade leader's secret, Kyon!"

Yeah, right, I thought. Rolling my eyes, I stood up again and began looking around. Since I could no longer see the spiral itself, I had to assume that we were travelling inside it, or at least towards the centre. And it was only then I realised that the sound had stopped completely. All I could hear instead was what sounded like the wind blowing…as if the atmosphere needed to get any creepier.

Suddenly, I became aware of an incredibly bright light emanating from the front of us, the direction in which our platform was travelling. A couple of minutes' observation showed me that the bodies were streaming outward from this point of light, creating the impression that we were heading to the bottom of a vast pool, like something you'd see in vacation commercials with shining sunlight and deep, clear water.

Haruhi seemed as transfixed by the sight as I was- she had moved her attention away from the soul-stream and was just staring into the light…yet I wondered exactly what she was staring at. Of course, the possibility existed that the centre of the spiral was having a soothing effect on her similar to the effect of the giant globe on Kirie, but I highly doubted that this was the case…although I would have loved to have thought that Haruhi could have been calmed by something as simple as a bright light. No, it was as if Haruhi was focusing on something…beyond the light. If that makes sense, of course. Well, it will in a second.

"Kyon…" she murmured. "Why can I see…in the light…?"

"Hm? What is it?" I asked, staring deeply into the light but seeing only a faint silhouette- not clear enough to resemble anything.

"It's…Kyon, why can I see Ayumu in there…?"

My heart seemed to freeze in my body for a moment. Ayumu…yes, that would make sense. Fake Koizumi had said that they had imprisoned her…hadn't he? Imprisoned or trapped her somewhere, so that they could take over her body, or mind…or something like that. I began to wonder what would happen if Haruhi came into contact with her, but…

These thoughts were cut short as the platform we were on collided into the mass of light. All that I could see was a huge, shining glow- the soul-stream now having disappeared completely. The rock quickly crumbled into nothingness, leaving Haruhi and me floating weightlessly in space. It took my eyes a few seconds to get used to the overwhelming brightness, but when they did everything soon came into perspective.

Ayumu was drifting through the sea of light, hands outstretched as if trying to hug some invisible being. Her eyes wide open, I began to wonder if she was conscious or simply comatose- considering Kirie's fate, I doubted that she was completely asleep. I also wondered how long she had been floating like this, as the fake Koizumi had mentioned them gaining control of her before the universe-fusion…I pondered how many years had passed, how long Ayumu had been floating in this void as if she was on the Dead Sea…

Suddenly, I felt the odd sensation of several voices talking, all at once. Combined together, it sounded like one huge mass of incoherent static noise, like at a crossing on a main street. I turned to Haruhi, to see her with her own arms outstretched, seemingly drawn towards the figure of Ayumu. As they got closer to each other, I could hear the voices grow louder and louder, merging with one another and creating a chaotic yet still somewhat ordered swamp of sound.

After this point, events get somewhat vague in my memory…the last things I remember are Haruhi's hands, clasping onto Ayumu's as if driven by some strange force…then everything went white. The voices cascaded inside my head, flowing over each other and becoming recognisable once more. Then I felt as though I was tumbling downwards, into a vast, never-ending pit of nothingness…to get poetic about it. After a few seconds it began to feel like a roller-coaster- the worst designed roller-coaster ever built, that is. Just a vertical drop, straight down…


	15. Rebuilding Reality

I awoke with a jolt, kind of like the feeling you get when you think you're falling in a dream. In fact…to me, it seemed like I had been dreaming the last expanse of time, and I was only now coming out of the dream. First things first, I noticed that I was on what felt like a load of rocks- I soon realised that the way they were chipped meant that they were actually broken paving stones. I rubbed my eyes and, as they slowly came back into focus, I realised that everything was significantly darker than before. And the fact that I was on ground meant that…

"Oh, he wakes up! Finally. Morning, sleeping beauty."

The voice…it was so horribly familiar that I felt like going back to sleep.

Koizumi.

"Man, I thought you were gonna sleep all day. Well, at least this time were could all assemble…"

I looked up and saw him, kneeling down to lend me a hand. All around us, buildings rose up, trees bloomed, the sidewalks extended out alongside the roads…it was dark all around us, but I could tell where we were- in Closed Space.

"Koizumi, what the…what happened to Haruhi? And Ayumu?" I yelled, looking around furiously. Scrambling to my feet, I desperately began to search through the rubble I had woken up in, hoping to find some sign that they'd been transported here with me.

"Kyon, Kyon…they're right here." He said, smiling. They were right next to him, unconscious but thankfully still alive. "I dug them out before you woke up. I had a bit of time to spare."

"T…time?" I wondered. "But we…we're trapped- Why would we possibly care about time?"

"Trapped, Kyon?" Koizumi chuckled, in that sly way that never fails to piss me off. "What do you mean? You've never been in Closed Space before? Come on, Kyon- don't you remember your romantic alone-time with Haruhi in here?"

I gritted my teeth. In any other situation, I would've slugged him.

"Listen, I can't really talk right now. Something big just showed up…I've gotta go take care of it." Koizumi said, looking towards the darkened sky.

"Something big…you mean like a Celestial, right?"

"Something like that. It looks like this'll be the end of the whole mess…I never thought it'd be as simple as destroying a Celestial. It is pretty big though…" He stopped for a moment, as if he'd forgotten something. A second later, there was a loud explosion as the building to the left of us collapsed.

"Huh, looks like it's already attacking…" Koizumi murmured. "I have to go. Just wait here, okay? Soon as the Closed Space comes down, this whole thing is over. Although I guess you already knew that."

I knew this…in theory. Of course, you've all probably realised that I was very, very confused. I had no idea what was going on, so I just had to put my faith in Koizumi for the time being.

"Oh, and one more thing." Koizumi said, surrounding his body with a purple bubble of energy, "Don't look directly at the Celestial. We're not sure…we think it's unstable, somehow. That thing's taken a few of the weaker ESPers down already- we're not sure where it came from, but it must have taken some amazing power to create…"

And with that, he shot off into the sky, kind of like a superhero I guess. He hadn't really done anything to save us, though. Well, except digging Haruhi and Ayumu out of the rubble…I would probably have left them there for a little while, cruel as that sounds. Maybe I was kind of warped from the frenzied events that had happened to me since the school concert. Man, that seemed far away by now…

Another explosion and the buildings on the other side of the street collapsed into the ground. I leapt over the rubble and knelt by Haruhi and Ayumu, in case…I don't really know, I guess. Maybe I had a bad feeling about Koizumi's last words. "Don't look directly at the Celestial," he'd said…

Then, the roar came. Deep and echoing, it felt as though my eardrums would burst while listening to it. It accompanied a vast earthquake, and I saw the street once again split in two. Panicked that the entire Closed Space was collapsing again, I felt my head instinctively jerk upwards, towards the fluttering lights of the ESPers.

And that's when I saw it. A giant, glowing mass, composed entirely of spirals, all interconnected. It looked like a psychedelic mess of shining bubbles, ripping a hole in the sky, and the sound billowed out of it like some sort of horrid insect, echoing within my head. I saw the ESPer bubbles going towards it, then bouncing off with large, multicoloured energy bursts. That was when I realised that the thing actually seemed to be breathing…it was alive. And the more I stared at it, the more I felt as though my head was going to tear apart.

Yet I couldn't stop looking at it. I think I saw something behind it…as if there was something behind the huge sea of spirals that I couldn't perceive, couldn't grasp…I heard the thing- whatever it was- scream, a horrible, high-pitched noise like an out-of-tune guitar…

Then I passed out.

Author's Note: Well, it's been a while since the last update- I was originally going to upload the rest of the story in one big update, but real life plus lack of inspiration took its toll. Rest assured though, the story is coming to a close- conclusion will be written and uploaded soon.

Thanks again for reading.


	16. New World, Vacations

"What're you looking at?" Koizumi said, breaking my peaceful moment of reflection with a pat on the shoulder and an unnecessary question.

"What do you expect me to answer with? I think it's pretty obvious." I replied. I guess it was a pretty rude response, but he HAD interrupted me, afterall.

"Heh, alright, alright. I was just making small talk." He stood alongside me, hands behind his back, and stared out at the city streets below…once again, alongside me. Not that I could blame him- the weather was fantastic, perfect for soaking in a little sun and breeze.

"So, you're contemplating, then?" He asked, less than twenty seconds later. He had that relaxed smile on his face, the kind that in any sort of perilous situation would be irritating as hell. And have we been in some perilous situations in the past.

"What would I have to contemplate about?" I asked back, not taking my eyes off of the streets. I saw an old man on a bicycle, narrowly dodging a sack of garbage.

He let loose a little enigmatic chuckle.

"Come on now, Kyon. Isn't there usually a part where you want an explanation for something weird that's happened? You can't say nothing weird's happened in the past week."

I sighed and smiled a little.

"I had expected you to bring the topic up, so I didn't bother saying anything."

Koizumi chuckled again.

"Of course, of course. I have to say, you know me well!" He said. I just sighed and shook my head. I guess at this point I must've come out of my daze, because the voices began to come within earshot again.

"Hey! Hey, hands off the beachball, Tomo! Go get your own!"

"Yo-mi! Give-it-here!"

"Aaaand so begins the first sumo-standoff of the vacation! Iiiiin the red corne- owww! Mio, why'd you hit me?"

"Idiot. Why not try thinking about people's self consciousness before they talk?"

"Heh heh. You know, you two make an awfully good pairing, there…"

"Ugh. Trust you to be a total geek the very first day of vacation, Shorty."

"Ahh! Kagami, how can you say such a cruel and heartless thing? Sakaki, she's being cruel and heartleeeeeess!"

"Uh…um…I don't…"

"AND STOP ALWAYS RUNNING TO SAKAKI BECAUSE YOU KNOW SHE'LL PROTECT YOU!"

"Um…I'm not much of a…um…"

"That's because Sakaki's niiiice~"

"AND STOP SHOVING YOUR FACE INTO HER CHEST!"

I couldn't help but feel a tiny glimpse of serenity as I watched them all…and I guess I was a little thankful, too.

Oh, that's right. I forgot to tell you. After Haruhi and Konata discovered that Tsumugi from the Light Music Club had a summer home that eclipsed the previous standard held by Chiyo, due to her being the daughter of an incredibly rich executive, or something like that. Of course, when they got word of that, summer was settled, right away- everyone pile into Mugi's summer home…regardless of whether we could fit in there or not. At the moment, we were just waiting for the train. All of us, crowded into a relatively small station…clearly, Tomo had gotten ahead of herself and had already blown up the beachball. I think Osaka and Chiyo had gone with Tsukasa and Miyuki to fetch ice cream, and Haruhi, Miss Asahina and Nagato were…I don't know where. It wouldn't surprise me if they came back in bathing suits.

Sadly, Fran couldn't make it due to some experiment having backfired. I thought I heard her mention "mechanical fish" on the phone, but I'm not totally sure of that. Kujo had been asked, but apparently he hadn't shown up…the train was nearly due, so I assumed he wasn't going to make it. I doubt he'd have enjoyed spending an entire summer in our company, especially considering how aloof he was.

"Heh, it's pretty good to see everyone enjoying themselves, huh?" Koizumi said. I jumped a little- well, he was right next to me, after all.

"You freaked me out a little, there." I said.

"Sorry. Just had to say it." He shrugged, before changing tack a little. "I'm interested as to how you haven't asked anything about how the whole situation…resolved itself."

"Do you expect me to ask?" I said. Of course, I was interesting in knowing…but I wasn't going to give me a reason to tease me as if I was some sort of inquisitive child.

"I guess so. I never know with you. Sometimes I kind of think you're playing down your curiosity a little."

He was partially right, I guess. Most of the time I just want to go with the flow, to use some out-dated hipster slang.

"Well, go on and explain it to me, then. You seem pretty desperate to tell me, anyway."

"About what happened after you fainted in the spiral world?"

"I'd like an explanation for pretty much everything in the spiral world. That is, after the point where the fake you died."

"Fake me? There was a fake me?"

"Don't play dumb." I frowned in frustration. "I told you about all of this yesterday."

Koizumi laughed. That's when I knew he was messing with me…for whatever reason.

"Oh, of course! How forgetful of me." He chuckled a little more. Before he could start to speak, however, I heard the high-pitched shrilling voice that signified Haruhi's arrival, and felt my stomach sink.

"We're baaaaaack!"

From out of the women's bathroom burst Haruhi, Nagato and Miss Asahina…and, not entirely to my surprise, they were all wearing bikinis of various patterns and sizes. Oh, and- once again, not surprisingly- Miss Asahina seemed to be wearing the skimpiest swimsuit Haruhi could have found. As awful as it must have been for her, I have to admit, I wasn't totally complaining…though these feelings turned to guilt as soon as she stared at me with those wide, helpless eyes that seemed to cry "help."

"Aaaaalriiiight! And the SOS Brigade (with new recruits) Summer Expedition to Mugi-chan's Awesome Huge Summer Home is gooooo!" Haruhi practically screamed. Characteristic of Haruhi, she just HAD to turn the few heads in the station that hadn't been turned by the girls in tiny bikinis.

"Ugh, moron." I murmured at her, taking off my jacket to at least give Miss Asahina a tiny bit of dignity, "You know we've got an hour-long train journey before we come anywhere near the summer home, and we'll probably be too exhausted to go on the beach when we get th-"

"Oh, Kyon, you're so damn boring!" She pouted, like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. Rather than say something back, I turned to the rest of the group for emotional support. Instead…

"Yeah, Kyon, seriously, I mean geeeeeeeez!" To my dismay, Konata leapt out of the crowd and went to stand next to Haruhi. "Besides, when you've got someone with so many moe-points as Mikuru there, you gotta show it off!"

"That's right, stop trying to spoil our fun, you jerk! Just when I went out and bought a super-sexy swimsuit to show off, too!" Takino bounced over to the other side, turning the coalition against me into a fully-fledged Three Stooges. I rested my forehead in my palm in despair and was slightly comforted to see that Yomi and Hiiragi was expressing the same disapproval. For a moment, I felt a slight sense of kinship with them- the three of us were all involved with annoying, single-minded individuals, afterall.

"Hmph! Well it looks like they've formed a team against us!" Haruhi declared, pointing directly at us. To be honest, I hadn't noticed that we were standing so close together as to be classified as a "team," but whatever. Haruhi would probably have said it regardless.

"Ice creaaaaaaaaaaaam!"

Another loud yell came from the entrance to the station, breaking up the Mexican stand-off that seemed to be developing between our two factions. I guess I was never much of a Clint Eastwood type anyway.

As we all turned round, we saw the remaining members of our party- Osaka, Chiyo, Tsukasa, Miyuki, Mugi (Our hostess) and the one who yelled, Yui, who I can remember as being the guitarist from the Light Music club that played on that one fateful performance. I wasn't even sure how long ago it was…in fact, I wasn't 100% sure I knew what the date was.

Each of them were holding 2 ice creams in each hand, which made me wonder why we sent the smaller members of our group out to get the ice creams, especially since they seemed to be struggling somewhat. Well, it wasn't my decision, I guess. Koizumi, Yomi, the other dark-haired girl in our group (I think her name was Mio, a friend of the Light Music Club) and myself went to relieve them of their ice creams. The Three Stooges snatched their ice creams from my hands less than a second after I'd taken them off of Tsukasa, before chomping away at them and fixing me with malevolent stares.

"Ignore them." Said Yomi, rolling her eyes.

"You don't have to tell me twice…" I replied. My eyes caught Sakaki's, who was licking what looked like a raspberry flavoured ice cream, and she smiled sympathetically. I returned an appreciative grin, and was about to go over and talk with her, when…

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

The yell came from behind us, just by the snack bar. We all seemed to simultaneously turn around to see what looked like a scraggly-looking detective, with messy hair and a similarly-messily-tied red tie running out of the bar with a cup of coffee in one hand and what looked like some sort of pastry in the other.

"You…you can't wear swimsuits like that in here! Don't you girls have any decency?" He exclaimed. My first instinct was to turn to Miss Asahina, who was trembling nervously. Kagami took the initiative.

"Sorry, officer, we didn't-"

"What? The Hell're you saying sorry for, anyway? Hey, jerk! We're just about to go on vacation so don't you dare try and spoil it for us now!" Haruhi interrupted, screaming at the poor guy. Surprised by this sudden outburst, he backed off a little, holding his hands up as if to say "whoa, whoa there…"

"Hey, hey, don't be like that…oh, man, I've never been able to deal with screaming girls, and Gumshoe's gonna chew my butt out if I don't get his coffee to him…"

In the middle of his self-deprecation, I heard Osaka dreamily mention something to Mugi…

"Hey, Mugi…d'ya know when our train gets here…?"

"Hmmm, I thought it was at about 11…why do you-"

"Eleven?" Yomi exclaimed, having overheard them. She began to check frantically around for a clock…

"Ahhh! It's eleven now!" Mio followed, looking at her phone as if insects had started to burst from it. As if on cue, we heard the sound of a train pulling in on the other side of the platform…and a glance outside showed us that it was our train.

"We're gonna be late! Laaaaaate!" Takino yelled, and straight away, our entire group took off running outside, heading straight for the stairs that would lead to the bridge over the railway, and to the other side. The suitcases clattered loudly across the floor, sounding like a parade of horses or something.

"Hey, what the- stop! Stoooop!" The detective yelled again, though this time he seemed somewhat hesitant to pursue us. "Ohhhh man, but if I don't get this coffee back…and Chief Gant said if I screwed up again he'd send me out to the countryside, and man that'd be boring and…"

"Uh…" I paused on my way to the door and thought for a second. "…sorry about this."

Yeah, it was all I could come up with, but I was faced with a time limit, after all. Leaving the poor guy behind, I followed everyone else (Haruhi leading the way, of course), in the race to the platform. I hoped this would be the last "race against all odds" type scenario for a long, long time…

Well, what do you want me to say? Long story short, we made it.


	17. Loose Ends

If you'd asked me how I felt about trains, I'd just have shrugged. Like cars, they were just something to get from one place to another, never mind all the romanticising about them. Of course, it was true that they were sometimes quite relaxing, a good time to read a book or just collect your thoughts by staring out of the window…I guess I just don't particularly like or hate trains. I'm impartial.

Of course, if you DID like trains…a trip with Haruhi and the others would probably change your mind. Throughout the first 20 minutes of the journey, the group was springing all around the carriage, opening windows, yelling about what they were going to do when they were all there…before anyone noticed, Koizumi, Mio, Yomi, Nagato and I vacated the carriage for the one behind. As soon as we entered, Yomi took a seat next to Mio by the window, Nagato took an empty seat next to a blank-eyed, bluey-purple-haired student, and Koizumi and I occupied the seats in front of her.

"Man, they're really pumped for this, huh?" Koizumi said. I half-turned to him, then turned back.

"I'll say. Such a pain…"

"Hahaha, I guess you could say that." he chuckled, then drifted into silence for a second. Almost literally.

"So, I guess you'll want me to explain the whole deal with you and Haruhi now, right?" He said. I turned to him and sighed.

"You're so enthusiastic about telling me." I shrugged and rolled my eyes. "Well I guess you'd better tell me then, in that case. I was wondering about it a little, and it'd bring this whole thing to a close, afterall."

"Ahaha. I was hoping you'd say that." Koizumi chuckled again. "So, what do you want to know about, first? I can't say that my answers're gonna be perfect, but…hey, I can give it a shot."

He sat still in thought for a moment, before he began to speak.

"I guess I'll go ahead and start by explaining the Haruhi thing. After she got all emotionless, you carried her around with you-"

"I didn't carry her literally."

"Aha, yeah, of course." Koizumi rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment…well, it looked like embarrassment, anyway.

"Anyway, to continue…you took her around until you saw this…fake me at the top of some sort of tower, right?"

"Yeah."

"And then…you somehow thought that Haruhi was the key to getting out of all of it."

"Yeah. I'd probably realised it unconsciously a couple of minutes before, though."

"Because of what happened before with the whole "Sleeping Beauty" scenario?"

"Wasn't it Snow White?"

"Heh, well whichever. I guess you know better than me." Koizumi shrugged, before continuing. "Anyway, you don't really know why you thought she'd help, right?"

"No, I guess I can't say I do. Maybe it was the Snow White thing, who knows."

"Right…tell me Kyon, have you ever heard of the phrase "Deus Ex Machina?"

I paused for a moment before replying. I have to admit, I only had the slightest inkling of what it meant. I knew "Deus" meant "God," for example.

"I guess I've heard of it." I replied. Koizumi smiled, as he does.

"Well it basically means "God from the Machine." It's basically a term used to describe a device used in fiction – a device that's basically a "get out of jail free card" for the author."

"Weird analogy."

"Ahehe, but at least you get it." Koizumi grinned. "Most Deus Ex Machinas are criticised because they're seen as a lazy way for the author to escape a scenario that he's backed himself into."

"So you're saying Haruhi was a Deus Ex Machina?" I asked, slowly feeling as though this was getting gradually more preposterous. Although, now that I think about it, I should really have expected that sort of thing from Koizumi by now.

"Well, something like that. It's not like we're actually living a story, right?"

After the previous series of events, I wouldn't have been surprised if we were. Though I guess an author would find most of my experiences with Haruhi fantastical enough to turn into novel form. Hell, most people who heard them would probably think I was making it all up.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I nodded. "So I kept Haruhi there till she awoke because I unconsciously knew that she was the key to undoing the…" I paused. What were those things called? Well, whatever. "the…plot of those things? And the actual effect that happened when Haruhi awoke was that of a Deus Ex Machina?"

"Basically." Koizumi replied. "And from what you've told me…I get the feeling that Haruhi just got bored of everything as soon as she awoke, and ripped down everything that the Outer Ones created."

Outer Ones…it sounded familiar, somehow.

"So the whole universe-fusion thing was that weak?" I asked, unable to believe I was actually willing to take a lesson on quantum physics, or whatever.

"I don't think it was because it was weak…the Outer Ones, and particularly that fake me you told me about, probably didn't anticipate that Haruhi would wake up. After draining all of her energy into a…excuse the pun, but a "spiral of depression…" they must have assumed that she was totally helpless. The God Within Her must have subconsciously pulled you into that world with her, knowing that you'd awaken her and unwind everything."

"Right. And that led to Haruhi basically breaking their entire world apart and recovering Ayumu?"

"That's right. After recovering Ayumu, the one binding them to our…Macrocosm, was it?"

"Probably."

"Well then, that probably broke their whole thing once and for all. That was when that thing appeared in the Closed Space, just before you passed out."

"Huh. I see. What happened with that, anyway?"

"Well, we don't know what it was, but we just treated it like a giant Celestial. We think it was one of the Outer Ones trying to physically- or metaphysically- break through the barrier between its Macrocosm and ours, trying to take us by force. But we just cut it to pieces and sent it back."

"Right." I figured this was everything, so I just took a minute to roll it all around in my head. Looking back, I guess it was kind of out-of-character for me to be so interested in the whole thing, but I guess I just wanted closure on the whole issue before going back to life as normal.

"Oh yeah, and there was something else, too." Koizumi interrupted my train of thought and turned to Nagato, behind us. "Can you help us out?"

Nagato looked up from the book she was reading and nodded slowly. This worried me a bit- wasn't there someone sitting next to her? It must've been shown on my face because Koizumi was quick to assure me;

"Don't worry, he has earphones in. I'm sure no one will hear, and if they do, we'll just tell 'em we're planning a sci-fi novel."

A sci-fi novel. If there was a more appropriate description of everything that had happened, I didn't want to hear it.

"Nagato and I were talking about…well, the state of everything now." Koizumi began.

"Everything?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the universe, and the Macrocosm that we're in. Where it all is."

"Right, all of the parallel universes, huh." I nodded.

"That's right…Nagato says that after everything went back to normal, she detected a sort of…split in the Macrocosm."

"A split?"

"Basically…" Koizumi paused to think. "Remember how I told you about "Chocolatey Kyon" and "Lemony Kyon?"

I did, unfortunately.

"Well, the same principle for the Multiple-Worlds thing works here. There is a Macrocosm in which all of the universes are merged into one- so, the worlds that Ayumu and Izumi are from are merged with ours, for example- and there is a Macrocosm in which they are separate. In the beginning, there was only the Macrocosm in which they were all separate. Am I right, Nagato?"

She nodded, staring with the same blank look she always uses.

"So," he continued, "after the Outer Ones invaded and starting fusing all of them, it made a split…you know how single-celled organisms reproduce through Mitosis?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Like that. All of the matter built into this one universe that you were sucked into was just blown apart, and it must've taken a while to rebuild itself, but when it did, it went back into two Macrocosms. That's what Nagato tells me, anyway."

"So…how does Nagato know that?" I wondered aloud, spotting a hole in the explanation.

"Simple analysis of massive inter-dimensional data swamps." She replied. "A rip in the dimensions was detected and sealed, with the ensuing data undergoing careful and precise analysis."

"Essentially," Koizumi translated, "She detected the collapse of the Macrocosm, and drew a conclusion from it. Thinking logically, if our universe was fused with other universes, then our original universe MUST still exist, without Izumi and everyone in it, right?"

I thought about it for a moment, before agreeing.

"Which brings me to the final part of my explanation. There are two anomalies in this entire scenario- Kujo, who was part of our team, and Goshima, the girl you discovered in the alternate universe."

I remembered Kujo clearly, but Goshima…the name wasn't familiar in the slightest, but I remember a girl in the other universe, definitely. What she had been doing was a different matter entirely- I was completely blank.

"Kujo, as we said before, only exists in one universe at a time because of his "Stand" power. It acts as a kind of anchor. So he must have been ripped straight out of his universe and ended up in this combined one." Koizumi explained. "What must have happened after everything tore apart was…he must have been flung right back to the universe he came from, the original one, as the Macrocosm repaired itself."

"So that's why we couldn't get hold of him." It suddenly made sense, in some insane strand of logic.

"That's right. Too bad we couldn't say goodbye, huh?"

I nodded, before allowing him to continue.

"And Goshima…from what you've told me, she was essentially a part of that universe- the universe being the messed-up one that the Outer Ones made. So after it was destroyed…"

Suddenly I remembered glimpses of what the girl had told me, about her town, and spirals…they weren't clear, but they were enough to give me a horrible feeling.

"What could've happened to her…" I murmured. Koizumi looked down and frowned.

"I'm not sure…I guess we can only hope she made it back to her world without anything bad happening…"

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I assumed we were finished…and what a horrible note to end it on.

Then, Koizumi started again.

"Oh yeah, I forgot something. It's only a small issue, though. Now that the Outer Ones are totally gone from our universe…well, essentially, it's like they were never here." He stopped here for a moment.

"Are you going to explain that more or just leave it on a cliffhanger?" I said, to which he smiled and shook his head.

"No, no. That was for effect." He continued to smile, irritatingly. "Anyway, it's as simple as that. It's as if they were never here in the first place, which means none of the events that occurred ever existed. This in turn means…well, have you felt yourself slowly forgetting things?"

I thought back to a few moments ago, when I couldn't think of the name "Goshima…" nor could I think of the "Outer Ones" that Koizumi was telling me about.

"I guess you could say that." I replied.

"Well, eventually you'll just forget all about these events. Because, well, technically none of them happened. I'm pretty sure everyone else has already forgotten everything, except the three of us and perhaps Miss Asahina. If she does remember, she's doing a good job of keeping it hidden."

"Well, I know I don't want any nightmares in ten years' time, that's for sure." I couldn't remember exactly what would give me nightmares, so maybe that was a good thing.

"Haha! Right, right! And none of us will remember it, either…even Nagato."

This somehow made me turn around and look at Nagato, as if I wanted confirmation or something. She replied with a short nod.

"So that's it? Everything's back to normal?" I asked.

"Basically. Or it'll be normal, anyway, once your memories are replaced with memories of this world. It'll be like you were here all along…which I know sounds weird, but I guess you can't really say anything against it…afterall, maybe you have been here all along, and your memories of the universe without Izumi and everyone are the ones that're false."

"Now you're just being facetious." I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Hahah! You got me!" Koizumi laughed. "But…I guess we can agree that this is the best case scenario for everything, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I see your point, there. So as well as Haruhi, we've got to handle Ayumu, Izumi, Takino and everyone as well?" I sighed, resting my forehead in my palm.

"Yeah, that's right. I hope you like a challenge, Kyon!" He chuckled.

"Ugh…" I groaned, and said nothing more.

And this is where I am now. On a train, watching the ocean glisten, seeing the sun bounce off the mountains of Amigara. We've still got another half an hour before we reach our destination, so I guess I'm going to spend it resting, staring out the window and…well, waiting for my memories to erase themselves. I never would've thought I'd be in this situation…but I guess you could apply that to all the scenarios that being with Haruhi has forced me into. The least I can do is try and make my last thoughts happy, but I can't help thinking about that girl. The girl…what girl? All I know is that I get such a horrible feeling in my stomach when I think about her, a feeling of apprehension…as if there's been no closure on the issue. I'm starting to worry a little, but I'm not too sure why. I guess I should just focus on thinking about the end-of-school concert that the Light Music Club put on…I hear they're replacing Sakaki with Mio, but I can't think why because Sakaki was a good bassist. The concert was pretty good, I have to say, and I even stayed for the encore…everything was pretty good. I'm a little too optimistic about this vacation, though…with Haruhi I guess anything can happen. Man, looks like it's going to be a hectic couple of weeks, afterall…

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, again. Hopefully all the ends have been tied up here, and hopefully people are still reading. There'll be an epilogue soon, in two parts. It won't be as long, and hopefully it won't be too long until I write it. Thanks for reading, again.


	18. Epilogue: Summer Dawn

"Hey, Kyon! Earth to Kyon, wake up!"

"Hm…?" I must have been asleep…? Where was I? Who…

"Well, good morning, sleepyhead." The voice was Koizumi's. Great. "You do know that everyone else rushed off to get ice creams already, right?"

My eyes slowly came into focus. I'd been lying face-up on a chair, it seemed…staring at the sun, no less. Huh, then that must've been why my eyes ached so much. Looking around, I saw Koizumi's figure, completely blacked out with shadow. So he was there and…right next to him, there was another figure. That of a woman's…a rather tall…oh, it was Sakaki, I realised.

I glanced at her first, as Koizumi's infectious grin probably wasn't the first thing I wanted to see upon awakening. She seemed slightly concerned and a little curious at the same time, for whatever reason I couldn't have guessed. Fortunately, she didn't leave me to dwell on it for too long, as she broke out into a friendly smile when she realised I was awake.

"I decided not to wake you." She said. "Did you find the trip tiring…?"

I smiled back, placing my hand over my mouth to cover up a yawn.

"I must've done…" My expression then changed to one that I can only describe as being "exasperated…" only it was a special sort of exasperation. One reserved for Haruhi herself.

"Well, on a train journey with Haruhi, I'd imagine anyone would be tired out. That girl just keeps going and going…like some sort of long-life battery."

Sakaki laughed a little, in that subtle and reserved way that she kept about her. It was then that I turned to Koizumi, who was offering me a hand up. I wondered how long that hand had been there for.

"You think I can't get off of a chair by myself?"

"Well, I was just offering. I thought you'd feel too tired to even move." Koizumi shrugged. Well, I guess it was good of him to offer.

"Thanks, but I'm perfectly fine."

I lifted myself off of the chair and stretched a little, looking over the beach as I did. Mugi certainly hadn't been lying when she said the house was "well-situated…" or, whatever she'd said about it. The house itself was on a path leading off from the beach, so we were always about 2 minutes away from the beach at all times. And of course there was a seaside town not too far away either, in case we…no, wait. In case Haruhi or the other members of her band of idiots got bored. I was just glad of the break, and I'm assuming most others were, too.

"So, they're buying ice-creams, huh?" I directed this question at Koizumi, but the one who answered it was Haruhi, from the other side of the beach.

"KYON WE'RE BUYING ICE CREAMS GET OVER HERE NOW SAKAKI KOIZUMI NOW"

Or something like that, anyway. Izumi chimed in with something similar, and Takino yelled something…I don't know. Obnoxious, I guess. I was still too woozy to even think about responding to it, so I just shrugged and decided to walk over there.

"Ah, you're going over, hm?" Koizumi said.

"Do we have a choice?" I shrugged. He laughed in response.

"No, I guess we don't, do we? Not if we want to keep her happy, that is."

I sighed. Keeping the Goddess happy was the first thing on our minds again…typical, we go on vacation and it's all Haruhi, Haruhi, Haruhi, as normal. Well, I guess I was used to it by now, and it wasn't like my vacation would be totally ruined.

"I'll go on ahead. There's something I need to talk to Nagato about. You'll catch up, right?" He said, a wry grin sneaking onto his face.

"What's that supposed to mean? Of course I will." I didn't want to guess what that expression, coupled with that final remark, could have meant. He just went back to his default, grinning expression and nodded, before setting off jogging towards the stand- "Straw Hat Ices." Interesting name for an ice cream stand, that's for sure. I sighed, and turned to Sakaki.

"Are you getting anything?"

"Hm?" Sakaki had been gazing out over the ocean. "Oh…yes. I like lemon ice creams."

"I see…oh." A thought suddenly popped into my head, as if from nowhere. "Was there any reason you quit that band you were in? You all sounded pretty good together at the end-of-school concert."

We started off walking, and Sakaki was silent for a moment. I'd gotten used to this by now- being friends with someone since middle school will do that.

"Well, I guess I don't really react well being in front of so many people like that." She said, hands behind her back. To most people this would seem like a sign of quiet reserve, I guess. Like I say, I was used to it. "I don't want to let them down…"

With this, she went silent again and continued to stare over the ocean.

"Ah…I see." I replied. In the distance, Nagato, Miss Asahina and Ayumu seemed to be talking, over strawberry ice creams. Three guys- one with blue hair, one with grey-looking hair, and one with a hat- approached them. Predictably, they were turned down, something the hat-wearer took harder than the other two. A moment later, they walked past us-

"It's your fault, Junpei. You're coming on way too strong."

"Dammit, we're older than them! I thought they'd-"

"Ugh. You get one more chance to prove to me that-"

They must've been picking up girls…of course they'd have failed with Nagato, and the others didn't seem like the type to go for guys. I guess you get that sort at the beach all the time…even if the blue-haired one didn't seem overly enthusiastic about it.

"So…" I began, trying to make conversation, "What kind of ice cream are you getting?"

Sakaki turned to me, her face curious.

"Oh. Um…" She stared at the sky, thinking. "I may skip it. I'm not fond of ice cream that much anymore."

"You're not? I remember you always used to like lemon."

"Ye-yeah. I guess."

And at this point I just gave up altogether. As nice a person as Sakaki was, she could be pretty hard to converse with at times, due to her quiet and reserved demeanour. Sure, I'd known her for a while, but I couldn't get her to break out of her shell as much as to get a good conversation out of her. Well, I supposed it could have been a blessing. Not being a particularly outspoken person myself, I would rather Sakaki been quiet than-

"KYON WHAT ARE YOU DOING FLIRTING WITH HER COME HERE NOW AND GET ICE CREAM"

I shook my head in annoyance as Sakaki smiled, a little embarrassed. Seeing this, I smiled back, looking downtrodden (I imagine) as I did so.

"You know…" I said, thoughtfully, "I bet you're glad you didn't join the SOS Brigade, huh?"

"Um…" Sakaki thought. "I didn't think people had a choice…"

I stopped and considered this. What an odd thought for me to have had…

"No, you've got that right. Unless, of course, you're a time traveller, ESPer or alien?"

Sakaki smiled softly, tilting her head.

"Well, I suppose that's a conversation for another time." She said, enigmatically. I didn't reply to this, simply pausing and considering what she had said. Surely it didn't mean…?

I just decided to chalk it up to Sakaki having an…alternative sense of humour. It was a bit of a cop-out, but hey, it was fine with me. I'd rather not have had another bizarre, sudden revelation while on vacation- it'd be like one of those soap operas where all the horrible twists suddenly come at the most inappropriate times. I was perfectly fine, as I've said already, with having a nice, relaxing (for the most part) vacation to round off the school year.

I ordered a strawberry-flavoured ice cream in the end. After being served, I sat with Sakaki and Mugi on a sunbed to eat it, talking about the house with Mugi as I did. Apparently, it was her family's smallest summer home…and I shouldn't have to point out that since all of us could comfortably fit inside, you'd hardly call it "small." Apparently, the Light Music Club was going to have a practise session later on, and we were all invited to watch. In honesty, I had planned to relax out by the front of the house and watch the waves that night, but I told Mugi that I'd try and come to watch. She smiled a genuinely kind smile, and said that it would be nice if I did.

Of course, it was at this point that Haruhi made an appearance.

"Hey. Kyon." The voice came from behind me. I turned and saw the Princess standing right there, pout intact.

"We're going to the town nearby now. And you're all coming. So tell those two."

"Wait a minute." I said, already sensing that it was probably futile to object. "You can't just make decisions for others- besides, aren't you tired from the train ride? Why don't we just relax or some-"

"BORING! I don't want to relax, Kyon! We're on VACATION!" She whined, as Haruhi does, "We need to have FUN! Dammit, what if there are like, sea monsters washed up here or something? DO YOU CALLYOURSELF A BRIGADE MEMBER OR WHAT?"

I groaned, the slow sound of someone slipping into utmost despair. It seemed that, no matter what I called myself, I was still going to go on this trip. Sakaki simply watched, a little bemused, and Mugi tried to interject-

"Um, if Kyon doesn't want to go, I can go in his place…I know the owners of the pottery shop in Kurouzu-cho, anyway…" Mugi explained, her smile never leaving her face, "Mr Goshima worked on the sculptures in the summer home, and my father is one of his friends. I haven't seen his daughter, Kirie, in a while…"

This name, "Kirie," rang a bell, but I wasn't sure where from…was she an old friend? Had I been here before? I didn't know. Haruhi was staring at Mugi, a mixture of curiosity and boredom…most likely boredom. The poor girl seemed to realise this, and panicked to speed up her speech.

"U-um, so yes, I would like very much to come along." She finished. Haruhi closed her eyes and folded her arms, as if in thought.

"Mmhm. Well, that's good. I'm glad you're enthusiastic about it." She didn't seem glad. More uninterested, really. "Well, if we're going to go we have to go NOW! Come on, Kyon! Your Brigade Leader orders you to go! NOW! MOVE!"

"Okay, okay, just let me put on a shirt at le-"

"NOW!"

Haruhi stomped off across the sand, seemingly not bothered about walking around a pretty respectable town in nothing but a swimsuit. Mugi stood up, touching me on the shoulder as she did.

"Don't worry. Just go and get ready, I'm sure it'll be fine." She said. Her reassurance was touching, if not incredibly naive. Well, she had plenty of time to get used to Haruhi over the vacation, though whether that was a good thing or not, I wasn't sure…

I stood up, deciding to resign myself to keeping Lady Haruhi happy and content, as usual…I asked Sakaki whether she wanted to go into town, and she nodded, before making her way back to the house to change into her clothes. I said I'd meet her at the entrance, and she nodded. It was good to have a normal sort of companion.

"Hey."

I jumped. Koizumi.

"Why do you keep sneaking up on me like that…" I said, pulling on a shirt that I'd thrown over the back of a chair.

"Heh, sorry." That grin, as usual. "I just thought I'd come and fill you in. Nagato and I have been talking."

"Haruhi." I said. It wasn't even a question.

"That's right. Maybe you've heard her talking about sea monsters."

As the conversation followed on its predictable trail, we reached the top of the beach and walked towards the edge of the hill overlooking the town. I could spot Haruhi, Izumi, Takino and the others running to the bottom, Haruhi obviously in front. For the brief moment I had to survey the town, I could see that it was a pretty kind of place, with a pond in the centre and smoke coming from the various chimneys dotted around- an old-fashioned town, just as I liked. I could only imagine what they'd think when they saw Haruhi…

I broke out of this romantic depiction in time to see Sakaki, Yomi, Mio and Kagami heading towards me, all in different states of annoyance.

"-can't even believe they'd be so stupid as to run down to a nice little village in bathing suits!" Kagami exclaimed, being the most irritated out of the four.

"I know, what will the elders think? They just don't use their heads at all." This was Yomi, who was probably the next in terms of annoyance.

"It's not like I expect anything else of them, though…" Mio mumbled, seeming more exhausted than anything. "Yui and Ritsu do this sort of stuff surprisingly often. I'm pretty sure they pulled open the window on the train and blew some old guy's hat right off…"

Sakaki, the least annoyed, said nothing. She was staring out over the village, as I had been. Koizumi and I greeted them and they us, however hurried they may have been.

"Ugh, I shouldn't feel like I want to rush after them as if they're my kids…" Yomi moaned, "But I really do…"

"I know exactly how you feel." Kagami agreed. "Well, I guess we can't waste much time, huh."

"Otherwise we'll look up and the whole town will have collapsed into the ground or something…" This was Mio. With this last remark, a horrible thought surged through my brain. I turned to Koizumi, who was deep in thought. As if he read my mind, he turned to me and nodded.

"We'd better get going." He said.

"…yeah." I agreed, the girls following suit like a kind of chorus. And with that, the six of us set off running down the hill, hoping to catch up with Haruhi and the others before something really, really bad happened to the town of Kurouzu-cho…sea monsters or not, the vacation at least promised to be exciting.

…after all, out of all the words that could be used to describe Haruhi, "boring" was not one of them.

Author's Note: And that's it. Finally, I've finished this fanfic- and probably a lot later than I could've done, due to concerns I had about the writing style, direction of story etc…but I'm glad I finished it, and I hope everyone reading it enjoyed it.

I have a lot of writing projects at the moment, as well as university starting up, but I do intend to write more fanfiction set in this "combined universe," so I will be doing so once I get some good ideas.

Once again, thanks for reading.


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